Nobody Told Me
by Won'tSayI'mInLove
Summary: We Extras were perfectly fine as we were. Secrets unknown, still totally oblivious, and I'd probably be mag-lev surfing with the other Sly Girls right now. And maybe, if we'd never left, we wouldn't be here right now... UgliesxKingdomHearts
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Heyyy its Massiekur-Holababe! I mostly write Clique FanFics, but I'm working on editing my cousin's tsubasa stories. Okay, enough about me. If you wanted to read about me, you'd click on my profile. But you didn't. You clicked on my story, so here it goes…**

**Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot: Sora-kun and Cloud are not mine. I wish Sora was, but he's nawt. (JESSI-CA HE'S NAWT YOURS EITHER!!!) So I'll keep typing, and Jessi-ca and the other Sora fangirls can keep dreaming…**

**And this story was inspired by TheKeysUnlocked's story, The Islands of Serenity. These characters are hers, except for Ariana who is my OC. Thnx!**

A short intro into my "new" life:

My name is Ariana Easton and I'm thirteen years old. My friends call me Ari, even though I hate it. I live your average life: boring parents, boring suburbia, boring school where everyone is either IN or OUT. The IN crowd are the Pretties. The OUT crowd is known as the Extras, because we're about as significant as extras in a movie. Ha, ha. Until now, that was the funniest thing in my life. I was an Extra. What the Pretties don't know is that life is SOOOO much more fun when you haven't traded your soul for a pleated cheerleader skirt. How much more beautiful the world is when you don't swap your brain for endless parties. They never see that side. And if they ever have, they forget it once they hit Pretty-dom. Or, as my friends and I call it, Pretty-doom. There's also a group below us, they're the people who got into the Pretties, but "betrayed" them and were kicked out. The Pretties protect their own, I guess, because the traitors are totally destroyed. They're called Nobodies, and there are only about 5 of them. There are others, sure, who are freaks or not willing to be Extras, but they hardly count.

So here I am, an Extra, and loving it. But then my parents told me something I never knew before: I was literally an extra.

I was never supposed to exist.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: My computer crashed just as I was finishing the last sentence…go figure. So here, my best re-creation of the sad, sad lost chapter. Always save your work….**

**OH, yeah, and I wanted to add something I found that was absolutely hilarious:**

**Roxas: (singing to tune of Milkshake) My keyblade brings all the boys to the yard, and they're like, Mine's better than yours! (points at Sora)**

**Sora: Yeah, well, my keyblade brings all the **_**girls **_**to the yard.**

**Hehe…yes it does. Anyway, on with the story! The song is Over It by Anneliese Van Der Pol. Not mine. But I wish it was…its totally addicting.**

When they first told me I was an accident, I thought they meant I was an accident in that gross way they teach you in Health class (yuck!). But I would have preferred that to the truth, honestly.

Because the truth is, I wasn't born. I was created.

Like, in a lab. With test tubes and chemicals. By weird, lab coat-wearing scientists who wanted to experiment with me when I came out. And, it turns out, they had. They'd shot chemicals into me, to make me faster and stronger and smarter. And taller. But when the shot for making me taller failed, I was supposed to be destroyed. My eight-month life was supposed to have ended there. But then the Humane Department came in and told them they couldn't do that. So I was placed here, with my parents. Or rather, with my government-assigned guardians. Oh, GOD, what happened to my life?

I ran upstairs after sitting through that whole speech given to me by my dad. My mom had sat there sipping away at her coffee and pretending her 13-year-old wasn't breaking down in front of her.

_Take a day off  
Give it a rest  
So I can forget about this mess.  
If I lighten up a little bit,  
then I will be  
over it._

I sobbed as I ran upstairs, half-blind. I slammed my door shut. Sobbing, I threw myself onto my bed. After another hour, I wasn't fully okay but I wasn't hysterical anymore. So I got up, and I walked downstairs to the kitchen. I opened the door and my mom called out, "Well, well! Look who it is! Miss Emotional calmed down yet?"

I glared at her, my hand still on the doorknob.

She shut the door and smiled at me. "Dearest, you know that ever since you got into those fancy-schmancy AP classes you're loaded with homework! No time for a social life, my dear."

I glared harder.

"Why don't you go back upstairs? You shouldn't go out while you're so stressed, sweetheart." She beamed at me. "Really, be a good little super-smart experiment and go upstairs and do your AP homework."

_I get everyday  
Too much work and not enough play  
Over and over  
It's always the same._

I opened my mouth to say something, but what came out certainly wasn't a word. It was a long, endless scream. I put all my pain and tears and frustration into that scream. It came out as a wordless, inhuman sound. How appropriate, considering the circumstance.

"Now, now! Just because you're not one of us doesn't mean you get to forget everything we taught you!"

With that, I slammed the door in her face and ran down to Yuki's house. I needed my friends, and I needed them now.

000000

When I got to Yuki's house, she threw open the door before I'd even rung the bell. "Ariana! What happened?"

I blurted out the whole thing to her. The whole thing made me start sobbing again, and I was sure I sounded like a whining little baby. But Yuki nodded, and when I was done she said, "OH, you're one of us too?!"

"What do you mean, _one of us_?" I gasped at her.

"Well, my parents told me I wasn't human years ago. I just assumed you knew too."

"NO, I didn't!"

"C'mon. Let's go get A and K. They'll know what to do."

"Like they know anything about _this_," I sobbed.

Yuki looked at me. "You'd be surprised."

000000

We got to Kaede's house quickly. We went right in, like we always did, and found them on the couch playing Kingdom Hearts. They had steaming Starbucks cups next to them, the cardboard rings wrapped around their upper arms.

"Look, Ari! We're Starbucks Nazis!" Akako waved and smiled at us.

"Akako…" Kaede paused the game, so Sora was across Akako's half of the screen showed Sora with his keyblade raised and about to strike Akako. Kaede looked at our faces. "Shut up."

"What?" Akako looked up, too. She saw my streaky face, my scraped knee, and my tear-soaked shirt. She saw Yuki's panicked eyes and wildly gesturing hands, trying to tell Akako to shut up. "Oh."

"Ariana, you had to find out sometime." Kaede looked at me. "I mean, you're not human. Don't you think you'd want to be told?"

"No," I said through gritted teeth.

_Take a day off  
Give it a rest  
So I can forget about this mess_.

The four of us looked at each other. We all realized that none of us would have wanted to know. But the others had been given time to get used to the fact that they weren't all human. I hadn't. They had loving, supporting people raising them. I didn't. Instead, I had a normal dad and a psycho mom.

I took a deep, shuddering breath. "I need to stay over at someone's house."

"What?" They looked at me. I was in the middle of a crisis, and I was worried about where I would sleep?

They must have thought I was crazy until I said, "I can't go back to those liars."

Ever.

_And when the world is closin' in  
I can leave it all and just walk away.  
I can always start all over again  
I am closer to a better day._


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey people… third chapter updated so quickly! Ha! Don't get used to it…I'm always very slow…but I type when inspiration strikes and obviously a good story needs inspiration. Anyway. On with the story!!!**

Yuki's POV

"Come on, Yuki!" Ariana's voice interrupted my nervous-making dream. Dark shapes closing in…lights swallowing us…something glowing in the corner of my eye. And it was getting closer now…

"YUKI!!!" Ariana whisper-yelled at me. "WAKE UP!"

"Should we just carry her?" Akako's voice sounded far away, somewhere on my left. But to my left was my window. They should have been on the right…in their sleeping bags…

"No, she's too heavy! She's taller than all of us. And how would she do on the fall? Not to well…" Kaede was whispering. She sounded like she was near Akako. What the…

"The fall? Who cares about the fall? How will we go un-noticed?" Ariana had made "unnoticed" into two separate words, like she sometimes did with other words. "Being caught is not very bubbly…"

I shot up. Ow. So much for not being too close. My head whacked Ariana's head, whose falling body smashed into Kaede. Kaede fell onto Akako, who nearly fell out the window she was perched on. "Ouch!" I squealed, but quietly. "What fall? Why can't we be caught?" 

Ariana looked at me. "Yuki, we're leaving."

_Drive' til the gas runs out and then walk so far  
that we can't  
see_

_this place anymore._

I noticed they all had backpacks on. There was one at the end of my bed. I grabbed it and put it on, thinking maybe it was one of those new Smart Matter backpacks that could later expand into blankets or, even better, a tent. Or, hopefully, a parachute. Yes, I hoped it was a parachute because I had no desire to splat on the ground.

_If I lighten up a little bit,  
then I will be  
over it._

"It's midnight right now," Kaede was saying, "And if we don't go now, we're going to be caught. Like Ariana said, being caught is NOT bubbly."

"So we go now, or never. If we don't leave now, we'll be stuck in Dullsville forever, or we'll be dead."

I shuddered. "Okay, then it's now." We grabbed hands, perched precariously on the edge of my window, and jumped into the darkness below.

000000

Ariana's POV

We landed softly, the hoverlifters quietly humming as they bounced us to our new home. That is, the woods in Yuki's backyard that went on forever. When the hoverlifters set us down, we checked for damage. Kaede pulled out a matter hacker and made our parachutes back into backpacks. We got up and ran into the dark night, hoping to God no one, or no_thing, _found us.

_Take a day off.  
Give it a rest.  
So I can forget about this mess._

000000

Yuki panted. "Ariana, please tell me you have hoverboards in there. We can't run forever, you know."

"No, we can't. But we can't open the hoverboards yet. The lights are a total give-away."

Kaede stopped running. So did everyone else. "Look," she said, pointing.

There was a soft glow, separate from the rising sun, on the horizon. "See that?" Kaede asked. "That's where we're going."

Yuki gasped. _A soft glow in the corner of her eye, slowly getting closer… _She sighed, remembering her dream. _Stop scaring yourself, Yuki, _she thought to herself. She looked back, unable to believe she might never go home again. Her eyes stung. She would have cried, but she never had before. Ever. She wouldn't start now. _Stop scaring yourself._

"Oh, Yuki, stop scaring yourself!" Akako blurted.

"What?" Yuki looked up.

"You looked terrified for a moment!" Akako said back, giggling.

"It's true," observed Kaede.

"Absolutely," I said, nodding.

_How could you know  
that behind my eyes a sad girl cried?  
And how could you know  
that I hurt so much inside?_

"Well, let's go," Yuki said, mostly to fill in the awkward silence that followed. She squirmed under the weight of the backpack. "Ari, can you make the Smart Matter in my backpack non-heavy?"

"Sure…" I pulled out her matter hacker and put it to Yuki's backpack. "Ta-da."

"Thanks. Now, we should keep going…"

"No," I said simply.

"What? Why not?" Kaede said, sounding irritated. She shifted her weight from one foot to another.

_If I lighten up a little bit_

_then I will be  
over it._

I looked up, and stared at my three best friends. Everyone who'd never lied to me was here. Everyone else had betrayed me. And I'd just kept running from the truth. Running for thirteen years now, and I was just starting to realize I was tired of it.

"Because, like Yuki said, we can't keep running forever…"

_Give it a rest._

_I need to forget about this mess._

**A/N: haha aren't I evil? Cliffy after cliffy…well, it keeps you people reading, doesn't it?! I'll start on chappy four now, I promise, and maybe it'll be up soon too. Wow, three chappy-s in one day! Aren't I so weirdly hyper? HA! You should see how fast I'm typing right now…**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: going for 4 chapters…might make it, cause I'm just so cool like that. (sticks out tongue) hate me!**

**Which reminds me…**

**Love me or hate me,**

**it's still an obsession.**

**Love me or hate me,**

**that is the question.**

**If you hate me,**

**then f… you!**

**Yes, the "…" is my version of screening. And I love that song! Its been stuck in my head for like FOREVER!!! I love it! Ha. I found the sugar cubes, Maddi. Can you tell? Yes, you can.**

Walking around the forrest, I started swearing I saw things. Tree branches overhead made a lacy pattern on the ground and scared me a little bit, because it looked like dozens of little eyes on the ground. I shuddered and walked faster. Suddenly, I stopped. "Guys, the trees are dense enough. We can use our hoverboards now." Anything to get away from the eyes. Clouds passed overhead, making the sea of eyes blink. I shuddered again. I'd never liked being watched…

We pulled out our boards and switched them on. Wobbling a little, I said, "I hope those scientists figure out how to fix a hoverboard by the time we're sixteen."

"I know! These suck. I want a better one," Akako whined. "These are so sad-making."

"Shut up." I rolled my eyes.

"Besides, Ari's matter hacker only works on things with Smart Matter in them and these boards"-she paused to steady her squirming board-"are definitely not smart."

I laughed. "Well, you could try putting on your belly censor," I told her, digging one out of my bag.

"You could have given that to me earlier," Kaede said, sighing in frustration as she clipped it on. "Are you going to give the others theirs?"

"We already have them," called out Yuki, gliding up next to Kaede.

"Yeah," I said, laughing. "They just suck at hoverboarding."

"HEY!!!" Akako cried out from behind. "SHUT UP!!!"

"A, we'd better put you ona a hoverball rig. You suck at hoverboarding!" Kaede, athletic genious that she was, carried a hoverball rig in her backpack. The others had food. Kaede had fashion magazines. ("Which ones," Yuki had wondered sarcastically, "Will save our lives later on?" Kaede had said the magazines, because otherwise she might "die of boredom!") Pulling out the hoverball rig, she turned around and strapped them to Akako.

"Set it to 0 g. Hurry up." Kaede sighed impatiently. She didn't want to be caught, and Akako was being very loud…

"Ugh, these things suck!" Akako looked up, hopelessly entangled in one piece.

"A, that's a vine. Not part of the rig." Kaede, her hoverball rig already strapped on, floated into the air and made several loops while she waited. "Hurry up."

"I'm trying! Maybe I just wasn't made for this type of thing!"

Made. Her word choice inspired a group shudder.

"That's why we're leaving," Yuki said softly. "So we don't have to worry about what we were 'made' to do."

000000

"STOP!" Kaede shouted. We froze, and slowly lowered ourselves to the ground.

"Stop squirming, A. That's a great way to lose an arm." Kaede rolled her eyes. Akako froze, looking fearful and staring at her arms.

"Ick," she said, frowning.

When we all landed, the wind began to whip around us. It swirled around in a cirlce like a cautious puppy, then came straight at Kaede. She beamed as the wind hit her full-face, whipping her brown hair around her face. Her loose black jersey dress was billowing out behind her.

"She's coming," Kaede said.

We knew better than to ask. Kaede had too many friends to count, much less keep track of. Besides, a nearby tree was starting to glow.

I sniffed the air, wondering if the tree was made of Smart Matter. But it wasn't, because there was no familiar taste of electricity in the air. The whistling wind didn't carry the dampness of the weather before a tropical storm. Everything was normal, aside from the wind and the glowing tree.

The tree began to split open from the heart, spreading wide to reveal a glowing center with a small lump inside. This lump kept swelling, until it began to show that it was three lumps: A small lump, a big one, and a medium size one. The medium lump was in front of the big one, and the little one was on top of the big one, just touching the medium one.

This threesome of lumps fell out of the tree. Eventually, the blinding glow faded to reveal that the smallest lump was a head, the largest a body, and the medium a pair of legs pulled up close to the figure's chest. It uncurled and was revealed to be a girl. Her long, dark brown hair was glowing in the moonlight, and her brown eyes were like mirrors. She wore a puffy black skirt, a black V-neck t-shirt with a red bow at the neck, and black fingerless gloves. She also wore black slip-on ballet flats that had red bows on them, the same as her shirt. Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes with the heel of one hand. "Kae-kae?" ahe asked, looking up.

"Chi!" Kaede reached out a hand, beaming excitedly. The girl took it, standing up and brushing off her skirt.

"Hi! You must be Akako, Ariana, and Yuki!" The girl grinned at them, her tiny frame casting a huge shadow over their faces.

"Yup," Yuki said, reaching forward to tug on the thin sleeves of Kaede's dress. "Can we talk to you?" she whispered to Kaede.

"What?" Kaede looked irritated. She glanced over her narrow shoulder. Her friend was inspecting the tree she'd come out of.

"Who is that?" Akako asked bluntly.

"That's Chiho. She's cool," Kaede whispered.

"How do you know her?" Yuki, who had sat cross-legged at the base of a tree, looked up at her friend. Her blue eyes were mixed with suspicion and fear.

"We met at summer camp," Kaede said. "She's the one who taught me about KH."

"OOOOH! I owe that girl your obsession with KH?" Yuki's eyes widened excitedly. "I like her already!"

I shot Yuki a look. " How do you know that Chiho isn't another one of those lab creations, like us? How do you know she wasn't sent to bring us back?"

"I trust her," Kaede said through gritted teeth. "You should too." And with that, Kaede got up and left the tight circle.

Chiho looked up. "Hey! You guys better come over here if you wanna come to Soul Kingdom with us!"

"Depends," I said. "What's Soul Kingdom?"

"It's the original name of Kingdom Hearts." Chiho's eyes glazed over. Her voice became echo-y and hollow as she said, "You have been chosen."

"What's with her?" Yuki whispered to Kaede.

"Her mom's spirit takes over every once in a while. It's not a big deal. She knows." Kaede shrugged casually.

"You will come to Soul Kingdom," said Chiho in her new voice. With that, a light emerged from Chiho and she began tp float. The rest of us floated, too, and I felt like screaming. The ground got a few feet away, then we dropped. But instead of a hard thud, I felt like I was floating along down a steep, dark tunnel. The last thing anyone heard was Chiho, speaking in her mother's spirit's voice.

"You have been chosen to save the Soul Kingdom."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: haha. Not feeling very motivated today…might only get this one up so be patient with me! Hehe. Actually, because it is 10:42 PM, I don't feel like typing up another chappy. So, you'll get another tomorrow. Maybe. I dunno, so don't yell at me if you don't get your chappy! XD**

I could feel myself changing. I could feel my short-shorts growing out into a mini dress, my shirt losing its short sleeves and becoming form fitting. I felt fabric coming down to cover my knees, and I felt my hair brush the backs of my knees. My head ached with a dull throb. I couldn't look down to see what was going on: even if I had I'd just have seen nothing, because it was so dark. It was like being dunked into a tunnel of chocolate pudding, but with a more sour smell than the sugary goodness of pudding.

I couldn't see the others but I could hear Chiho's voice saying "Wheeee!" and Yuki complaining, "OUCH! Who just kicked me in the gut?"

"Sorry," came Kaede's reply. "I was trying to stretch."

What was probably minutes (but felt like hours) stretched on. We were finally dropped in a grassy field. There was a cave nearby. But more distracting than the cave was my friends. Akako's hair was now a dark red instead of orange-y yellow, her light wash jeans switched to black denim, with a cluster of gold chains hanging from one belt loop to another. She also wore an olive green button-down t-shirt with gold buttons. Her brown eyes had turned to ice blue. There was a green-and-gold-flecked keyblade at her feet. The keyblade's shiny black-ness was almost blinding in the sun.

My super-short brown hair had grown to a long, knee-length cut with side bangs and thin braids running through it. Kaede told me my freckles were gone and my eyes were black with gold flecks and violet highlights. My red tank top and dark jeans had been replaced by a black dress with tank top sleeves and a square neckline. There was a single plastic blue heart button sewn onto each strap, and the dress fell to my knees. I wore navy leggings dotted with tiny silver skulls. My keyblade was black with small sapphires embedded in the neck.

Kaede's short black jersey dress had grown so it was floor-length with a red trimming on the bottom. The sleeves were past her fingers, even though they were cuffed and showing a pretty red silk border. The top was kimono-style, and her shoes were tiny black and red Chinese slippers. Kaede's hair was in long layers with bangs that hung in front of her now mint-green eyes. Her keyblade was black with gold flecks and studded with tiny rubies.

Yuki wore ripped jeans with gold chains hanging from her belt loops, paired with a black and gray shirt with three-quarter length sleeves and a hood. She wore big, black-and-white skater-esque shoes. Her white-blonde hair was silver now, cut into a collar bone-brushing style. Her pale eyes were now the same sapphire color as the stones in my keyblade. The keyblade near her was black, like everyone else's, but it had large diamonds on the neck instead of the tiny ones like in everyone else's. They seemed to dance in the sunlight, each one glowing as though a fire was in each diamond, glowing warmly. The handle was gold and had small charms hanging off of the end: precious stone trios in the shape of Mickey Mouse head silhouettes. There were five of these, each with an initial carved into the back: Y, C, A, K, and A. Everyone had been represented as a charm. Yuki's was in diamond, Chiho's was made of aquamarine, Akako's was emerald, Kaede's was of rubies, and mine was in sapphires.

"A charm for each of the girls on your team," Chiho's mom said (through Chiho, that is).

"Freaky spirit say wha-?" Yuki looked up.

"Yuki, your new team is Ariana, Akako, Chiho and Kaede. It is your new duty to protect the Soul Kingdom from the Heartless." Chiho's eyes, usually a dark violet that edged on brown-ish black, were green now. I assumed that was what happened when her mom was taking charge.

"Again, freaky spirit say what?" Kaede's eyes flashed. She was the only one smiling.

"Um, whoa. I have to live with Chiho?" Akako coughed. "I mean, WE have to live with Chiho?"

"YES," Kaede said through gritted teeth. "Do you have a _problem _with that?"

"Well, actua-"

"No, she doesn't," I interrupted quickly. "I can't wait!"

"But that's not what I wanted to s-"

"_Yes, it was_," I said sharply.

"Fine," Akako grumbled, then shot a help-me look at Yuki.

"Leave me out of it," Yuki said. "Chiho makes good cookies."

"Easilybribed," Akako sneezed.

"HEY!!!"

"Hey, here's an idea," Kaede said quickly. "Let's go see who's in the cave! I'll die if it's Cloud-kun!"

Grabbing our keyblades and our backpacks, we went in. There was a thud behind us, and Kaede was out cold.

"Does that mean-?" Yuki started.

"Yes," said a voice. A tall guy emerged from the shadows. "Hi, I'm Cloud."

"I know," Kaede murmured from the floor.

"I'm Sora," said another voice. Sure enough, Sora came out of the shadows too. Yuki and I looked at each other and silent-screamed.

"I'm Roxas," said another person.

"No, you're not!" Akako said quickly. "You're…eh, actually, I dunno. But you're not Roxas-kun!"

The real Roxas came out from yet another shadow. "That's Ren," he said. "Ren, gimme the wig. Where'd you get city-made stuff anyway?"

"Travelers," Ren mumbled, taking off the wig to reveal brown hair rather like Sora's. In fact, Ren looked a lot like Sora other than being two heads shorter and with black eyes. He also wore a red t-shirt and baggy black pants with tons of shiny gold zippers all over them

"OMG, its like L and Sora combined," sighed Yuki.

I looked at her, raising an eyebrow and tipping my head to the side. It was my "WTF?" look, practically a signature thanks to Yuki.

"Oh, shut up!" Yuki cried, turning red. "I'm not fangirl-ing! I'm not!"

"Never said you were," I said breezily, smiling at Yuki innocently.

Sora looked at us in confusion. "What's fangirl-ing?" he asked.

"Eh, uh…it…um…see, fangirl-ing is…ah, no…um…"

"Nothing," I interrupted, glaring at the stutteringYuki. "Real smooth," I mouthed at her when Sora turned away.

"You have city-made things?" Ren asked, looking at our backpacks.

"Yup," I said, beaming. I pulled out the matter hacker and made our backpacks into blankets. From there, I made the blankets into sleeping bags. I showed him our water purifiers and dehydrated food packets (MacChe, SalmRoll, CurryNood, SpagMari, and ChickenNoodCass). Then I showed him our collection of dehydrated breakfasts: ScrambEgg, CheOmlet, BerryPan, and Waff. We selected a packet of ChickenNoodCass (chicken noodle casserole) and purified some water from the pool in the back of the cave. The little container dinged, and we scooped out the cheesy goodness.

Everyone ate quickly, looking at us for desert. Yuki pulled out ChocChipCookie and we munched the lightly burned cookies.

After eating, we got up and walked off into the back of the cave, which was becoming more and more house-like. There was more furniture back here: several beds, large chairs, and small iceboxes. Shelves had been carved into the stone walls.

"This," Sora said, "will be you girls' room. Is that okay? We haven't had a chance to carved out more rooms in a while."

"Okay," Kaede said, walking over to one of the rough wooden bunk beds. "Wow, how'd you guys get this stuff back here?"

"Brought materials back, assembled the stuff back here," Ren said, sounding proud. He glanced at Yuki to see her reaction, something we all pretended we hadn't seen. "It was hard. Those are solid wood, you know."

"Okaaaay," Kaede said, throwing her sleeping bag up to the top bunk. We all claimed beds quickly. When we were done shuffling, Yuki was under Kaede's bunk, I was above Akako, and Chiho was setting up a small cot in the corner. We stuffed our belongings into the shelves carved out at our bedsides. Kaede put a flashlight in hers.

"What?" she said when she saw us all looking at her. "I like to be able to see back here."

"That's what these are for," Yuki said, placing touch lights all over the room. She tapped them as she walked off, illuminating the room softly.

Sora smiled. "We haven't seen city-made lights since Ren here broke our last one last year," he said softly.

"HEY!!!" Ren cried, looking at Yuki as his cheeks flushed. "It wasn't my fault! Roxas pushed me!"

"Did not!" called Roxas from the front of the cave. "You're just a klutz!"

Sora laughed a little. "Welcome to Soul Kingdom. When you aren't hacking away at Heartless-es, you'll come to enjoy it here."

"Yeah, I hope we do," I said, and Kaede clapped twice. The lights went out and Sora left the room, leaving us to sleep peacefully. We never eve registered that it was still light outside.

Hey, sliding down a tunnel of pudding-esque stuff, changing your hair color, meeting the guy you'd fangirl-ed over for several years, and setting up home in a cave that was from your favorite video game just _might _exhaust you too.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: hey just so you guys know, Cloud didn't knock her out! Kaede fainted. He he. And yes, Yuki-chan, you can steal Ren-kun. Go ahead.**

I woke up to the scent of smoke.

"Akako!" I squeaked, looking over the edge to see nothing. "YUKI!!!" I looked over and saw her totally passed out. But Yuki and Kaede were gone. The smoke smell was getting stronger.

"AKAKO!!!" I shouted. "FIRE!!!"

Akako shot up. "What?!" She sniffed the air and jumped down. "Aaaarg, I'm too sleepy for this kind of crap," she grumbled, her new red-gold hair totally messy and her eyes blinking away the sleepiness.

We ran towards the front and almost stepped on the source of the smoke. A small fire had been made in a corner of one room towards the front.

"What the…" I looked around. Kaede and Yuki were sitting side by side, with their Smart Matter blankets draped over their shoulders. Chiho was sitting cross-legged next to them, laughing at something Kaede had said.

Yuki looked up. "Good morning, dorks," she greeted us, smiling. Something pinged at her side. "Oooh, breakfast is ready!"

"What the heck? We smelled smoke!" I looked around. That little fire sure put out a lot of smoke.

"And Ari thought the cave was on fire!" Akako giggled.

"You did too, _Ako_," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Akio Akako!" Kaede, who had been a die-hard Harry Potter fan, started cracking up. "That's a summoning charm," she added, seeing our blank looks.

"Ohhhh," we said, and laughed. Akako remained blank, probably out of protest.

We speared out slightly mushy berry pancakes. As we ate, we continued to chat. "So wait. Soul Kingdom is really Kingdom Hearts?"

"Yes, Yuki, it is." Chiho's eyes were brownish-violet again. She was herself again. "And Akako, I just new that pumpkin-orange hair of yours would look great here!"

"HEY! My hair is NOT that orange!"

"_Was _not," Chiho corrected. "Now its such a pretty red color."

"My hair was never orange," Akako mumbled.

Yuki fake coughed. "Ohyesitwas!" she sneezed.

"Shut up!"

There was an awkward silence. Then Akako burst out laughing.

"What are you laughing at?" Yuki demanded. Kaede subconsciously reached up to tug at her new long bangs, making sure they weren't messed up or split down the middle.

"I just got it!"

"What?" Chiho looked up. "What did you just get?"

"I just got what was so funny about Kaede saying 'Akio Akako!'" Akako laughed some more.

"Wow." Yuki said after a silence. "Akako, you just reached previously uncharted levels of stupidity."

"Shut up!"

"Oh, Akako. Haven't you learned I don't shut up?" Yuki laughed and popped a piece of pancake in her mouth. "AAAH! HOT!!!"

"Yes I am," Ren said, dropping down between Chiho and Yuki.

"Shut up," Yuki said, turning as red as her burned tongue.

"G'morning, Ren," Kaede said, rolling her eyes.

"Hi…um…" he shifted uncomfortably.

"Kaede," sneezed Yuki.

"Kaede!" Ren finished.

Kaede rolled her eyes again. "Wow, I really am in the presence of the world's smartest people!"

"The future of the world looks dim if these fools are the smartest," Roxas said, dropping down next to Akako.

Cloud nodded and sat next to Kaede. Kaede turned pink. Sora sat next to me, making Yuki turn even darker red.

"Ew!" she said. "It smells like burned hair over there," she complained, getting up and sitting on Sora's other side. Ren's face fell.

I leaned behind Sora to whisper to Yuki, "Go back. Look at Ren."

"Yeah?" she whispered back. "Look at Sora's face."

"Yeah, I can see it. But you can't, 'cause he's looking at _me_."

"Shuddup!" Yuki looked up. "Crap, he is!"

"And Ren is looking at you. _Go back,_" I told her.

"No. How awkward would that be? I said it smells like burning hair over there."

"So what? Say it smells over here, too."

Instead of responding, she rolled her eyes and straightened up. "Ewww, it smells over here, too!" Crinkling her nose, she walked back to Ren. When she sat down, she mouthed _Happy now? _at me.

_Yes, _I mouthed back and smiled angelically. Then I looked around. Kaede and Cloud were talking. Or rather, Kaede was talking and Cloud was nodding and totally forgetting his pancakes. Kaede asked him something and she laughed wildly.

I rolled my eyes but smiled. Chiho was looking longingly at Sora. Wait as second. Sora? MY Sora? I sent her a high-speed glare. Every time I started to think Chiho wasn't so bad, she went and messed it up again. GRRR!

Chiho blinked back, looking confused. _What? _she mouthed, looking at me.

_Don't even think about it_, I mouthed back, jerking my chin at Sora. Sora had mixed something into his water, making it thicker and oddly sweet-smelling.

"What did you _do _to your water?" I asked him, tilting my head innocently.

"Mixed in a chemical that makes this stuff chocolate milk!" Sora beamed and took a sip.

"Ew! Wait a sec…" I dug through my non-Smart Matter bag and gasped. Two packets of that particular chemical were missing. "Hey!"

"Eh he he…Sorry. But I like chocolate milk!" Sora laughed and added, "And I haven't had it in forever…"

"Go ahead," I said, handing him another three packets. His face lit up. "Next time, ask!" I added with mock seriousness.

He bowed his head with fake regret. "Yes, Ari-chan," he recited.

"Ick! I hate being called Ari," I whined.

"Sorry," Sora said. "Yuki told me you preferred that."

I shot my friend a look. "She did, did she?" I murmured. I got up and walked over to Yuki, dropping down between her and Ren. "Yuki-ca, I heard you told Sora I like being called Ari," I whispered to her. She giggle-nodded. I rolled my eyes and leaned the other way towards Ren. "Hey, Ren?"

He looked up. "Yup?"

"Yuki hates when you use her full name. She thinks it's almost an _insult_," I told him. "Use some other nickname, or something."

"Ohhh, okay," he whispered. "Thanks."

Then he turned to Yuki. "Hey, Yu-yu!"

"WHAT?!" Yuki almost spat out her water. She started coughing. I got up and left quickly.

"What the heck? _Yu-yu_?" Yuki said, still choking.

"Ummm…"

I snickered as I sat down next to Sora again. Ren was stuttering now and Yuki was turning a strange eggplant purple. "Oops," I murmured under my breath.

Sora laughed. "What's going on with them?" he asked. "Lover's spat already, eh?"

"God, you are such a _loser_, you know that?" I laughed.

"Oh, yes. You thought a stone cave was on fire, even though granite doesn't burn, and I'm the loser?"

"Yup," I said lightly and speared another pancake. "Yes, you are."

"Gee, thanks."

"No prob," I said, noticing Chiho was checking out Sora again, and Sora was checking out Kaede. I was starting to be more and more close to Akako. She was the only one who wasn't A) out to steal Sora, B) plotting to turn me against him or C) distracting him from _me_.

The Soul Kingdom wasn't like it was in the game: the Kairi-s of this version couldn't be blocked out by taping a piece of paper to the TV screen. They were all too real.

**A/N: haha silly Ari…Like anyone could turn Sora against her! But stealing him? Well…Kaede better watch it! 'till next chappy…bye!**

**X's, O's, and WORLD DOMINATION,**

**MH-chan**

**PS Yuki-chan: we are the all-mighty Mokona-hat-wearing chillins. Heck yes!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: going for 2 chapters tonight…my record is three right now…not beating that tonight.**

**Hey this story isn't too bad for being made up on the spot, is it? Haha. Drafts are such a waste of paper! ( :**

"Hey! Ari!" Kaede ran out into the field. "Ouch, bright light," she said, squinting.

Yuki came out behind her. "AAAH! The light! IT BURNS!!!" I could hear Ren laughing inside. Yuki went back in and Akako came sneaking up behind Kaede.

"HIII!!!" Akako shouted, launching herself at Kaede in a total glomp, running start and all.

"GAAH!" Kaede fell over, laughing. "You suck, you know that?"

"Yes," Akako said. "I hear it on a daily basis."

"Oh, shut up!" Kaede laughed and playfully shoved Akako on the shoulder. "Why are you here, anyway?"

"To make sure you didn't get totally murder-ized by Ari…" Akako said, slinging her arm over Kaede's shoulders.

"Awww, you're tho thweet," Kaede said, mocking Akako's lisp that she'd had until fourth grade.

"…without me being here to watch," Akako finished. Kaede slapped Akako's arm and wriggled out from her grasp.

"You suck!"

"OKAY, sorry to interrupt the little love-fest," I said playfully, "but why did you come out here, Kae?"

"Because you looked pissed at me. And I don't like my friends being pissed at me."

"Well, then stop being so nice to Sora."

"_Nice? _The only time I've talked to him was to tell him to stay away from my hoverball because he might pop it with his hair! That's what you call _nice?_"

"NO, that's what I call flirting!"

"Look, I want"-she paused to look around-"Cloud, not Sora," she finished in a whisper. "Don't worry. Sora is all yours."

"Okay, but what about Chiho?"

"What about her?"

"She was totally staring at him!"

"So what? Ren stares at Yuki but he doesn't want her!"

"Yes he does," Akako chimed in.

"Point proved." I crossed my arms.

"I…I'm sure she doesn't know! Chiho may be a _little_ evil, but a crush stealer she is not."

"Hmmm…"

"She's not!" Kaede cried. "Really! Why do you hate her?"

"Because she's a crush stealer!"

"NO, she's not! Give her a chance before you strap her to the electrical chair, would ya?"

"Fine," I grumbled. "She gets three chances. Then I'm breaking out that chair."

"You have one?" Kaede looked at me. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"Because I didn't want Akako to wake up strapped to it," I teased. She and Akako had fights that were legendary.

"Oh come on, I'm not that crazy!"

"Ohyesyouare," Akako sneezed. "Thanks," she added to me.

"NP," I said, then headed back inside. "C'mon, I smell SalmRolls!"

"What's that?"

"SUSHI!!!" Akako charged ahead of me.

Looking at each other, Kaede and I shook with suppressed laughter. Then we started giggling. Then we were hysterical, laughing at Akako's geeky behavior. She'd nearly tripped over an uneven spot in the floor, making us laugh harder. It was so hard to mad at someone who'd been your bestest buddy for 9 years. Preschool friends die hard.

**A/N: Haha. See Akako? Watch Akako run. See Kaede and Ari? Kaede and Ari see Akako run. See Kaede and Ari laugh. (sorry. Hanging out with little people makes my brain melt. XD)**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: hey look is this my 3****rd**** update of the nite?! Woo go me! Haha. Aren't I the sweetest? Oh and NBB I _didn't_ fix the name…when would I have time to do that?! Psh. You're reading funny things again...Everyone else: the song is Remember The Name, by Fort Minor. I just bought it on iTunes (thanks, NBB, for the giftcard!) and its stuck in my head. Also, what better song for a chappy on their training? Maybe Headstrong, but this is the song I have stuck in my head right now so ya know what I'm gonna shut up and write now. Sounds like a good idea, yeah?**

We woke up to see Sora bouncing around our room, shouting, "Wake up! Training day! Wake up! Training day!"

"What? No," Yuki said, pulling her pillow over her head. "Saturday is my sleep day."

"Not anymore! Saturday is our training day!" Sora was skipping around our room; I could hear his uneven steps.

"UGH!!! We'll go if you'll SHUT UP!!!" Akako pulled her blankets up to her chin.

"And if you don't skip around like that," Kaede said, tugging her blanket over her head.

"Maybe! Now move it, move it, move it! Cloud doesn't like it when we're late!"

"Cloud is training too?" Kaede shot up, the blanket still covering her head like a littlie trying to be a ghost for halloween. She tore it away.

"YES, but you'll miss him if you stay here forever!" Then Sora looked at her. "And why does _that _matter?"

"NVM," Kaede mumbled then tapped the touch light on her shelf. The light flooded our otherwise dark room. "Wake up!" she shouted, kicking the mattress of her bed so the whole bed shook.

Then she got up and ran over to my bunk. I jumped down. "I'm up!"

000000

_This is 10 percent luck,  
__20 percent skill,  
__15 percent concentrated power of will.  
__5 percent pleasure,  
__50 percent pain,  
__and 100 percent reason to remember the name._

When Kaede got to the beach where they practiced, she looked at the weapon in her hand. "Um, guys?" She looked up. "What happened to my keyblade?"

We all looked at her, then her weapon. It wasn't a keyblade anymore. It was more of a really big wand.

"Ah, you got a staff," Cloud said.

"OOOOH, a mage!" Sora gasped, eyes wide. Kaede's keyblade was now a long staff, as long as she was tall, and it was black with a gold handle. The head was pointed like a spear, with two long, curling feathers tied to the wider end of the head with a red leather cord. The neck was ruby-studded. It seemed to make Kaede have a gold aura around her, rather like the black-ish purple one around Yuki.

"Shut up," Cloud said. He grabbed the back of Sora's shirt. "And stop skipping."

"Why? I had more cho-co-late milk this morning!" He grinned. "Those things are addicting!"

"Maybe we should hide those from him," Roxas said, rolling his eyes.

"NOOOO!!!" Sora cried, breaking free of Cloud's grip. "Nooo, you can't do that!"

I giggled at his melodramatic performance. "Yes, Sora. Or worse, I'll drink them right in front of you!"

"Oh, that is just _mean_."

"Ari? Mean?" Kaede's eyes widened with sarcastic shock. "NFW!"

"Haha." Roxas rolled his eyes again.

"Are we training or not?" Cloud asked, his keyblade held in fighting position.

"We'll watch the pros," Kaede said sweetly, "to get an idea what we're supposed to do."

"Okaaay," Roxas said, not realizing that Kaede was shamelessly flirting with Cloud.

Sora looked at Kaede, then nodded. "Okay," he said. "Watch and learn!"

"Can't wait," Chiho said, smiling adorably.

"Who asked you?" I mumbled.

"What?" Chiho asked me.

"I said, 'Wonder who'll win?' Why? What did you think I said?" My voice was filled with that eerie sweetness that was obviously fake but if you called me on it, I could just say you were being paranoid and I had no reason to disrespect you. Nobody had ever tried to call me on it, even as an insignificant, supposedly powerless Extra.

"Oh, nothing," Chiho said in the same voice. "I just couldn't hear you."

Kaede looked at me. _Three chances. You promised_, she mouthed at me.

I rolled my eyes but nodded. "Okay," I said with genuine nice-ness. Or at least genuine lack of emotion.

With that, we all turned to watch the guys practicing.

_He doesn't need his name up in lights,  
__he just wants to be heard  
__whether it's the beat or the mike._

_He feels so unlike everybody else, alone  
__in spite of the fact some people still that they still know him.  
__But no  
__He knows the code.  
__It's not about the salary,  
__it's all about reality and makin' some noise!_

Cloud was winning. Sora was looking at Kaede so much that he nearly got his head chopped off. And Roxas was busy watching Akako, who was giggling sympathetically every time he almost got hit. Cloud was watching Kaede too, but he was still more focused. I noticed Sora's careful attention to Kaede with jealousy, but Kaede was watching Cloud with a dazed expression.

"Watch it, you little dimwit." Cloud laughed. "Or you'll go back to Kaede headless."

"Oh, come on," Sora said, slashing at Roxas. "We're just practicing."

"So what? You walk into my keyblade, well, I can't fix that."

"Shut up," Sora said, slashing again at Cloud. "You know Kaede's busy watching _you_."

"And I know you're busy watching Kaede."

"So are you!"

"Yeah, but I'm not about to walk into your keyblade, now am I?"

_50 percent pain,  
100 percent reason to remember the name._

**A/N: haha, little square here: Ari and Chiho like Sora, who likes Kaede, who likes Cloud, who also likes Kaede but no way in hell is emo boy gonna say it! Ha! And wait a bit, what about Yuki and Ren and Akako and Roxas? No competition? Oh wait Yuki has her own little love square too: Ren likey Yuki, who likey Sora, who likey Kaede, who likey Cloud. Haha! So three people like Sora…and he likes the one who doesn't like him. Awk-ward! And I like the word "likey"! It's so fun to type…haha.**

**X's, O's, and cupcake frosting,**

**MH-chan **

**(the almighty Mokona-hat-wearing, world-domination-obsessed, freakin' awesome chibi vampire who you all love, hate, or love to hate!)**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: just this one chappy tonight…school night, and I'm sleepy…well, for now, until the caramel from that popcorn kicks in (NBB: I paid you your the dollar!!!) but by then I'll be kicked off the comp. XD So here ya go! Enjoy!**

The girls had joined in, and Kaede was kicking some serious butt. She'd put on her hoverball rig, so she was soaring above their heads and laughing. Nobody else really knew how to fly in those without killing themselves, so Kaede was the only person who could fly.

"That's unfair!" Sora was insisting. "She's cheating!"

"Would you call it cheating if it was you up here?" called Kaede, laughing and doing another aerial flip.

"No!"

"Besides," I offered, "if she's in a real battle it isn't really cheating, it's…expressing a desire to live."

"True," Sora admitted. Then he smiled. "We like do you alive, Kaede."

I turned red, and Kaede looked down and mouthed _Sorry_ at me. I rolled my eyes but smiled. It wasn't her fault. I couldn't blame her for Sora not knowing who liked him and who didn't.

"I like you alive, too, Sora," Chiho said innocently. "So you'd better pay attention."

Now Chiho I could blame. That little…AAARG! I swung at her, my harmless plastic keyblade whacking her on the head.

"EEEE!" Chiho fell to the sandy ground. "Owwww!"

The others scrambled over, even Cloud. "Ohmigod, Chi? Are you okay?" Kaede looked at her friend with sympathy and I felt like screaming.

"It hurts," Chiho sobbed. She grabbed at her head.

Of all the over-pretentious, sympathy-seeking, dramatic, lying, pathetic, unworthy, grimy little…AAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!!! I felt like slapping her, but I liked not being Public Enemy Number 1. I could imagine how that would look through everyone else's eyes: Me, brutally slapping a crying little girl. Definitely not good.

So I swarmed too, pretending to feel pity and sorrow and regret when honestly I was hoping she wouldn't be able to fight with us. Maybe not this entire time!

I shook my head. A little girl was on the ground, sobbing because I had hit her with an oversize plastic key, and I was hoping she'd be mortally wounded? What was _wrong _with me? I sighed and walked over to Chiho, saying, "Chiho, I'm sorry. I thought you saw me! I'm really sorry."

"Yeah, right!" she spat at me. I took a step back.

"Wha-?"

"Oh, right, like you weren't just hoping I'd die!"

I swallowed. "Chiho-"

"Chiho! She _said _she was _sorry_!" Kaede shouted. I looked up in amazement. Kaede was picking me over her? Half of me wanted to do a happy dance, but the other half was too shocked to do anything but shut up the other half.

"Kaede, what's wrong with you?" Chiho whimpered, clutching her head as though to remind her what had happened. "She hit me with her keyblade!"

"We're training! She's supposed to try and hit you!"

"Kae-kae, she-"

"Why don't I take you back to the cave?" Sora asked Chiho softly.

_Wait, _I thought to myself, _WHAT? No, no, no._ "Sora, you don't need to," I said quietly.

Kaede nodded. "Yeah, you don't have to."

Chiho let out a conveniently timed whimper.

"Yes, I do," Sora said, and helped Chiho get up. "Come on, I'll take you back."

"Thank you, Sora-kun," Chiho said softly. Limping dramatically, she looked back to give me an _Eat your heart out_ kind of look. Then she stuck out her tongue. Kaede missed this. I wanted to kill that pint-sized demon, but refrained from doing so. Again, I knew how that would look to Kaede and, most importantly, to _Sora_. I wanted to run up and tag along, just to bug Chiho (and to flirt with Sora), but they were too far away to catch up with by now.

"You picked me?" I asked Kaede.

"Yes." Kaede puffed out her cheeks then exhaled sharply. "You went over to apologize. And she bit off your head." She looked up and grinned at me a little. "Convenient, as you almost weed-whacked her head off."

"Ha, ha. So not funny," I said, rolling my eyes but smiling.

"Besides," Kaede said softly. "Preschool friends die hard."

**A/N: haha remember that last line from anywhere? You'll understand later. Its part of Kaede being…well, Kaede.**

**XOXO,**

**MH-chan**

**(that effing awesome, all-mighty, totally powerful, Mokona-hat-wearing chibi vampire you all envy. haha!)**

**"Don't worry! I love you too! Just not in the same weirdly worshippy way." -me!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: hi everyone…tenth chapter, woooo! That's more than my other existing stories (I think) and those have been up for at least a year now! Wow…maybe its cause Mokona-dono stopped sending me her chappy-s…I should bug her about that! The song is "Where Do You Go?" by I-don't-know, but it isn't mine. Its totally addicting…and its been stuck in my head ever since yesterday, when I heard it on Extreme Home Makeover, where they gave the girls a music room and they decided to perform this song. ANYWAY. Enough psychobabble: you probably don't care. On with the story!**

Later that night, Kaede woke up to the sound of someone moving around in their bed. Something shone in the moonlight near Chiho's bed. The ligth bounced off and illuminated a moving figure in Chiho's bed.

_I'd like to believe in the future,  
I wish it was safe and strong.  
I wish I could fly on a wing and a prayer,  
but I've lied to myself for too long._

"Chiho?" Kaede rubbed her eyes. "What are you doing?"

There was no reply. Kaede shrugged and fell asleep again. Exhaustion was making her see things again, probably. "Night, Chiho," Kaede mumbled. Again, there was nothing but eerie silence and the sound of someone walking around.

_I wish I could scream like a baby,  
I wish I could cry out and be saved._

"Just someone using the bathroom," Kaede whispered to herself.

She squished her eyes tight, so she completely missed the small, glittering piece of metal that Chiho was whispering into in her palm. And she never saw Chiho quietly get up, and tiptoe out of the room.

_I wish I could fly on a wing and a prayer  
but I've lied to myself for too long._

000000

The next morning, Kaede woke up with a headache. "Ouch, ouch, _ouch_," Kaede said crossly, rubbing her head. "What the hell?"

"Kaede?" Sora walked in. "You know Sunday-"

"Is no-cursing day? God, is there any one day that isn't an effing organized day? Is there a free day? Or is there a scheduled free day?"

"How did you know-?"

"What you were going to say? I guess I just kind of knew," Kaede said. "I swore I heard you say it…"

"Nooo, he didn't say anything," Yuki chimed in, sitting up and peering over the edge of the bunk at Kaede.

"Are you okay?" I popped up and looked at Kaede too.

"Yeah, Kae, you look…different." Akako nodded.

"I LOOK WHAT?" Kaede shot up and tugged a mirror out of her bag. The same shaggy hair cut and long bangs were there, and the same green eyes stared back. Kaede's hair was a little messed up, but that was it. "No, I don't, Akako."

"Nooo, not like physically. But you just don't look the same!"

"What?"

"I dunno," Akako finally said after an awkward silence.

"Hey! Did you know every awkward silence, a gay baby is born?" Yuki said, rolling over and propping herself up on her elbows. Her head rested in her hands and her eyes were closing again.

"WHAT?" Chiho sat up. "Wow, Ari, that must have been a REALLY awkward silence when you were born!"

"CHIHO!!!" Yuki blurted. "Now that is just not _nice_."

"Yeah, where's nice Chiho?" Kaede pleaded.

"Seriously," Yuki agreed. "What happened to the awesome girl who got Kaede addicted to KH?"

"I don't know," Chiho said softly. "Maybe she never existed."

_So tell me where do you go  
when I'm not around?  
There's a place I know  
you can let your defenses down.  
_

000000

Later, when everyone went out to practice, Chiho insisted upon staying behind.

"Really, guys! I have something to take care of," she'd kept saying. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna burn down the cave. And I'm not going to get kidnapped, either. I promise I won't! Seriously, just go."

_I'd like to believe that you love me,_

_I'd like to believe that you care.  
I'd like to believe you're the one I can trust,  
and you're the one who will always be there._

"Okaaaay," Roxas said, and led them off. Cloud shoved him aside.

"I lead, O Smart One."

"Of course you do," Roxas said, and bowed sarcastically. "I forgot, my Master."

"Damn right I am."

"Hey you two! Why so serious?" Sora called out, popping up next to Cloud.

"Because I want to be," Cloud said, and walked ahead of them.

"God, what's with him?" Sora asked.

Roxas shrugged. "Something's bothering him. Same old Cloud, too emo to tell people anything."

_I'd like to believe in the future.  
I wish it was safe and strong.  
I wish I could fly on a wing and a prayer,  
but I've lied to myself for too long.  
_

"Emo boys are funny!" Sora shouted excitedly.

"OW!!!" Roxas rubbed his ear. "Shut it, will ya?"

000000

"Are you alone?" a voice whispered.

"Yes," Chiho answered.

"Good girl. Now, what are they doing?"

"They're going to practice at the north beach."

"Mmmm…that's no good. Tell them that there's been a storm, and the south beach is the only safe one."

"Yes, milord."

"Oh, and do you know Chiho escaped?"

"How did she do that?"

"I don't KNOW!" the voice thundered. "But get her back, and get her back soon."

"Alright. Don't worry, the Extras haven't even began to question me yet."

"Good girl, Kiah."

"Thank you. No worries, Chiho will be returned soon enough."

_I'd like to believe you're the one I can trust;  
you're the one who will always be there._

000000

"WAIT UP!!!" A little girl came stumbling towards the group. "Wait for me!"

"Chiho? What happened? We thought you said you were staying behind!"

"What? When did I say that? I haven't seen you guys in three days!" Chiho reached them.

"What happened to you?"

Chiho's clothes were raggedy, her face scratched and bleeding. Her skirt was torn, her shirt smeared with dirt. She was barefoot, and her gloves were so dirt-covered you couldn't see the thin 10-point star on each palm. Her black nail polish had chipped away, leaving thin stripes of black paint on each tiny nail. Her freckles were invisible beneath the layers of dirt and grime crusted on her face.

_Tell me where do you go  
when I'm not around?  
There's a place I know  
where you can let your defenses down.  
_

"Some freak got me," Chiho scowled. "I've been gone for three days. Why didn't anyone come for me?"

"You were in the cave all night!" Akako said, sounding puzzled.

"Oh no, I wasn't." Chiho insisted.

"But you're back at the cave! We left you there! You said you had things to do!"

"No, I didn't!" Chiho said desperately. "Guys, listen to me-"

"HEYYY!!! HEYYY!!!" Chiho came running up the road.

_I'd like to believe you're the one I can trust,  
'cause you're the one who will always be there.  
_

"What?" Yuki looked at the Chiho in front of her, then at the one coming down the road. "Okay, what is going on?"

Chiho #1 (the messy one) said, "She's an impostor! I'm the real Chiho!"

Chiho #2 (running Chiho) snarled, "You!" Then she turned to me. "Ariana, she's a fake! I came to warn you guys! There's a new evil power! It's using a fake Chiho to trick you!"

"What the hell is going on?" Cloud roared, coming back into the circle. Sora and Roxas wedged in next to him. "Two Chiho's?"

"And I thought having one little sister was bad?" Sora choked on his spit. "Ack! Now there are two of 'em to kill me!"

"Sora! Obviously one of them is a fake." Roxas said.

"See? Even Roxas knows!" Chiho #2 insisted.

"Which one is the real Chi-chi?" Kaede moaned in frustration.

"Kaede, it's me!" Chiho #1 looked up at Kaede pleadingly. "Please, please, PLEASE Kaede! You know it's me."

"She's a liar!" Chiho #2 shouted. "Kaede, this mysterious copy of me shows up and you aren't destroying her? Come on!"

_I'd like to believe that you care,  
'cause you're the one who will always be there._

"I know!" Sora cried out. "Both of you!" He pointed at the two Chiho's. "How do you make bombs?"

"What?" Chiho #2 looked up. "Why would I know that?"

"Well," #1 began, "You need peanut oil, matches, gunpowder, and something to put it in. Oh and you need a candlewick, too! Then you mix up everything but the candlewick and put it in the container, and put the fuse in, then drop it where you want it and light the fuse!"

"That's Chiho,' Sora said, pointing at #1.

"See?" Chiho #1 said. She tugged at her raggedy skirt. "Please, can we go home? I need something to eat! My stomach is absolutely dying. I haven't eaten in days."

"Awww, poor Chi-chi!" Kaede cried out. "We'll make you a big serving of Chicken Noodle Casserole! And desert! You poor thing, Chi-chi!"

_I wish I was grateful and my conscience was clear,  
so that I could dance on your grave._

"Yes, go along with your happy little friends, Chiho," whispered the left-behind girl. "I'll just have to get you later."

Then the girl's palm pinged. She peeled away the glove on her left hand and asked, "Yes, milord?"

"Kiah, you lost the girl."

"Yes, milord. But I'll get her tonight."

"You're running out of chances, Kiah."

_I'd like to believe in the future;  
I wish it was safe and strong.  
I wish I could fly on a wing and a prayer  
but I've lied to myself for too long_

**A/N: Oooooh, what now! Who's this Kiah girl? Only I know for sure…hehe. Might get a second one up, but don't count on it.**

**Cupcake frosting, huggles, and LOADS of sugar cubes,**

**MH-chan**

**(that amazingly kick-butt, all-mighty, awesome chibi vampire with way too many FanFics that haven't been posted yet) (ha! My longest identity yet! 2 lines!)**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: well, well. I got it up! 2 chapters! yeah! go me! I typed reall reallly fast (still am) so sorry if there's like a lot of mistakes. hehe. its just part of me being, well, ME!!! Don't like it? Well, then you really should hide the sugar cubes a little better! ( :**

That night, Chiho explained what had happened. She'd gone for a walk in the morning, to make herself tired so she'd finally fall asleep. But before she got back into the cave, someone had gotten her and knocked her out. She'd woken up in another cave, chained to the wall. She'd practically died when she saw shadows moving around, afraid and hungry for three days and four nights before some shadow had come and let her go.

"What did it say?" Kaede asked.

"It said, 'Don't tell the lord.' Then it unlocked me and let me go." Then she looked at Kaede. "How did you know it said anything?"

"Because…well, while you were gone it was discovered Fate made me a magician. So I got this nifty staff"-Kaede pulled out her new staff-"and some new skills."

"OUCH!!!" Ren cried out from across the room. Everyone turned around to see him with his entire fist in his mouth. "It _bit _me!" he added, pointing at the water purifier with his free hand.

I laughed and rolled my eyes. "Wow. The water purifier bit you."

"Shut up, Ariana!" Ren shouted. Even with his fist in his mouth, Ren could make us all insane. It was something I didn't understand, and had no desire to.

"Come here," Kaede said. He came over. "Take your fist out of your mouth. Wipe it off."

He obeyed again. She looked at his fist. Her hands hovered over his, and she began to mutter things to herself:

"_Kami-sama.  
__Cure isto,  
__cura este agora.  
__  
__Heilen Sie dies,  
__Heilen.  
__Sie dieses jetzt."_

Ren's red burn began to fade, then normal flesh covered it like nanos covering a building: quickly, consuming it with thin tendrils forging a new path. Fairly soon, Ren's hand was completely normal again.

Kaede dropped her hands. "That was weird," she said simply.

"Whoa." Ren looked at his hand, twisting it around to investigate it from all angles. "That was an advance healing spell!"

"Nani?" Kaede tipped her head to the side. "What?"

"Yeah, that was cool!"

"You're almost ready for a mission, you know." Cloud dropped down next to Kaede. She emitted a little squeal.

"No way! That's so cool!" Kaede's eyes shone. "Are you going to come?"

"Yeah…I guess I am."

000000

Chiho's POV 

The night was silent, and everyone else was asleep. But I was wide awake. I'd gotten new clothes, perfect replicas of my old ones, and I was tucked under my warmest sheets. My friends had even given me their extra blankets. So why was I still shivering?

Footsteps sounded on the cave floor. I shuddered. _Stop imagining things,_ I scolded myself. I was going to be a little paranoid now.

Then something jumped from the shadows. I screamed but nothing came out. Something was forced over my nose and mouth and I held my breath. But eventually I had to breathe. So I did, and the world tilted to the left. I waited a little longer before breathing in again, the shortest of breaths. Even so, I was immediately knocked out.

The last thing I heard was a girl's voice, saying, "I promised I'd get you back, Chiho."

Then the world tilted left even more and I fell off the edge of the world.

"I always keep my promises."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Hahaha! I got ice cream, and now I'm totally WIRED!!! I just realized last chappy was so short…sorry about that! I hope I can make this chappy a little longer…**

**NobleBrokenBeauty: I'm so happy you think I'm a good writer! But, um, I'm not re-creating your funny little emo(tional) K/C 8-page lovefest. Hahaha.**

**crystalfeathers: yes, it is supposed to have a connection to the uglies trilogy, and they left because they all knew what they are and besides, now Ari's neighbors do too cause she was kinda yelling while she told Yuki. XD**

**The Keys Unlocked: Hello? Where are my reviews, Yuki-chan? Where'd ya go? I'm gonna send the frogs after you…they're not that fun. Just ask NBB. They're not that great. :D**

**StrawberryDeath: Akako-chan…review or I'm gonna kill you off…NBB and TKU, you'd better tell Akako that her FF life is in danger…AKAKO ARE YOU READING THIS? DANGER!!!!**

**Everyone else: he he, sorry bout that. Akako-chan said she'd read my story! She promised!**

**Enough yelling at people. On with the story!**

Chiho's POV

"Get offa me!" I shouted, once I'd woken up.

A girl looked at me with clear disdain. "Ah, Chiho. You're not supposed to be awake, little one."

I blinked. This girl looked and sounded exactly like me. It was like my reflection had come out of the mirror. Wait a minute…_my reflection had come out of the mirror._ I dug out a mirror from the deep pockets of my skirt. When I looked in, I had no reflection.

The mirror was yanked away. "Clever, clever little girl, aren't you? Yes, I'm your reflection. Everything you are, I'm not. Which means I'm not weak, compassionate, or likely to hesitate before killing a resistor. So behave if you ever want to see the light of day again."

I swallowed. Then I took my mirror back and put it in my pocket. Then I realized something was missing. "What…?"

"Yes, Chi-chi, we took your other mirror. Do you think I want to go back? No. Milord has it now, and he uses it to keep his power." The girl grinned evilly. "You, on the other hand, are powerless."

I rubbed my eyes; I could feel whatever she'd used to knock me out coming back. "Who…are…you?"

"I'm your reflection, Chiho."

"Name…"

"My name is Kiah. But soon enough you'll be Kiah and I'll be Chiho."

"No…"

"Yes, Chiho. Darkness and reflections will finally win."

000000

Kaede's POV

"Chi…?" I woke up the next morning. I saw Chiho's bed in the corner of the room. "Ack, it's really bright."

I smiled softly. Chiho was still asleep. I swung my legs over to one side and was greeted by a stone wall. Then I swung my legs to the other side and fell from the top of the bunk bed. "Owwww," I whisper-moaned. I rubbed the back of my head. "Jeez."

"Chi-chi…wake up…" I whispered as I walked over. She didn't move. I pounced on her bed and the bubble I'd thought was Chiho deflated completely. "What the…"

"Kae-kae! Kae-kae!" Chiho came running into the cave. She stopped when she saw me. "What are you doing?"

"I thought you were still asleep," I explained. "But apparently not."

"Oh. Sorry. I got up early and went for another walk."

"Chi-chi! You think you'd learn after your first kidnapping not to go out alone." I shook my head. "What, do you want them to get you again?"

"Sorry, Kae. I forgot," Chiho said, her face falling. "Old habits die hard."

"Yeah, I guess so. When I got out of bed today, I automatically swung my legs over the edge of the bed and I hit the wall! Then I tried the other way and actually fell down!"

Chiho cracked up. "Smooth," she said. "Kaede, let's go to breakfast."

I looked at Chiho. She noticed. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Sorry," I said softly. "Just that you never actually call me Kaede."

"Ooops! Well, I don't usually get kidnapped either, but that happened." Chiho shrugged. "Some things just _happen_."

"Yeah…I guess so…"

000000

Ariana's POV

"Welcome back, Chiho!" I called out. Now that I knew Chiho was Sora's younger sister, I couldn't be mean to her anymore. She wasn't fangirl-ing; she was being protective.

"Thank you guys," she gushed. "You're so sweet!"

I had laid out a big buffet for her, since she hadn't eaten in three days. There were berry pancakes, waffles, soymeat sausages, and glasses of hot chocolate for everyone. "It's no problem, really."

"No, seriously! I mean you trained so hard last Saturday! God, that was such fun! Sora nearly got his head chopped off."

There was an awkward silence. "Chiho," Akako began. "How do you know about that? You were still prisoner."

"Ummm…Kae-kae told me all about it?"

"No, I didn't."

"Yuki?"

"No…"

"Sora, then! Definitely Sora!"

Sora cleared his throat. Even if Chiho was acting weird, she was his sister. "Yeah," he mumbled. "I told her."

"Oh, okay," Yuki said, giggling. "I thought we'd nabbed the wrong Chiho!"

"Oh, that would NOT be good!" Chiho said, laughing. "Then the Dark Lord would know where you live. And you don't want that, now do you?"

000000

Kiah's POV

Oh, the Dark Lord will be so pleased with me! I managed to trick Chiho's team into thinking I'm one of them...and that I'm Chiho! Not to mention that I've not only recaptured Chiho, but I brought him her mirror! Her can trap whomever he wants to now! Best of all, he can release whomever he want to, too. Perhaps He will set Sho free…


	13. Chapter 13

Nobody's POV (author's POV, I guess)

"Chi-chi?" Kaede rolled over in bed. "Are you awake?"

"Well, now I am," Chiho grumbled. She sat up. "What?"

"What was it like, being captured and all?"

"Oh, god. You don't even want to know!" Chiho gasped. "It was terrible. This guy, he had me chained near his throne when people came to talk to him, otherwise he would have me in this teeny-tiny room. Now I know the Dark Lord is cruel, but I never knew how much until that! It was admirable, almost."

There was an awkward silence. Kiah realized she'd messed up royally. But it was too late. The gears were turning in Kaede's head, and there was no stopping her...

"You're not Chiho," whispered a new voice. It was Yuki. She'd grabbed Kiah by her wrist and was squeezing it tightly. She had a deadly look on her face. "Where is she?"

"What?" Kiah's heart sped up. "I'm Chiho! Yuki, I thought we were _friends_."

"Where's Chiho?" Yuki screamed. The other shot up in their beds. Ariana hit her head on the ceiling.

"Ouch," Ariana said. She rubbed the top of her head and fell back down, propping herself up on her elbow.

"What are you talking about?" Akako rubbed her eye sleepily. "That is Chiho."

"Let go, Yuki. You're probably hurting her." Ariana yawned.

"This isn't Chiho!" Kaede cried out. "This is the fake!"

"No, I'm not! I'm Chiho!" Kiah kept insisting. "I swear!"

"WHERE DID YOU TAKE CHIHO?" Yuki roared.

"I AM CHIHO!!!" Kiah screamed back.

"What's going on in here?" Sora walked in, followed by Cloud and Roxas.

"It's the fake Chiho!" Yuki screamed.

"No, I'm not!" Kiah wailed. "I swear I'm Chiho!"

Sora walked over and looked at Kiah closely. "FAKE," he announced loudly. "The real Chiho has a ten-point star necklace. This girl's is only eight."

Seconds later, the fake was tied to a chair in the corner with Yuki's blanket. Kaede had conjured a glowing orb and had used her hands to angle the light towards Kiah's face. The others stood behind Kaede and Sora, arms crossed like threatening bodyguards. Kaede and Sora knew Chiho best, so they would question the fake.

"What's your name?" Kaede asked.

"Chiho!" Kiah insisted.

Kaede shook her head. "I'll ask again. What's your name?"

"CHIHO!!!"

Kaede turned the light brighter. "WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"

"Fine! I'm Kiah."

Sora stepped forward. Kaede dimmed the light slightly, rewarding Kiah for telling the truth.

"Kiah," he said. "Where did you come from?"

"The Dark Lord!"

"Who the heck is that?" Cloud mumbled from the outer circle.

"I dunno," Akako whispered back. "But it doesn't sound all that friendly."

"No duh," Ariana whispered back.

"Silence, please," Kaede said, her eyes boring holes through Akako's skull.

"Where is this _Dark Lord_?" Sora asked. His little sister was in the hands of some freak called the Dark Lord? This could NOT be good. "And why does he sound like such a freak?"

Kaede shot Sora a look. "Where can the Dark Lord be found?"

"I …I cannot say," Kiah said softly. "He listens to all I say, and He will find out."

"TELL US!" Kaede shouted. Her friend was NOT going to be trapped forever just because this girl was a coward.

"I cannot say. But…" She eyed the keyblade in Sora's hands. She grabbed for a piece of paper and a pen and began writing: _I will lead you if you do not tell Him that I am the responsible one._

"Okaaay," Yuki said, rolling her eyes.

Kiah's eyes bulged and she began writing again. _Write your responses too! He is very clever and can decipher our conversation from mere words._

Kaede picked up her favorite pink fuzzy pen. _Okay,_ she wrote. _Now take us to Chiho!_

_Only if you don't hurt me_, Kiah wrote out.

_Why would we hurt the person who is guiding us to our friend?_

_I don't know, Kaede, but you might._

_Let's go. Now. While we can still be hidden in the dark._

_All right, Yuki, _Kaede wrote. _We'll go now._

_In silence,_ Kiah wrote.

And they got up, leaving the cave quietly. But as Kiah left out, a black and red ping caught her eye. She flexed her finger slightly. The ping opened. _Kiah, _it read, _are they coming?_

_Yes, milord_, she wrote back. _We're coming. They will be there soon._

**A/N: Kiah is such a bee-yotch. Geez. What a little loser. Fave part: "And why does he seem like such a freak?"**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: sorry about the no-update last night…I had a lot of HW.**

"See that?" Kiah asked, shoving aside a tree branch. "That's it."

"That's great," Yuki said. "Now let's go!"

We charged ahead, stopping when we realized Kiah was standing behind us, totally still.

"Kiah. You're coming," Kaede said. It was a command, not a question.

"If I go, then He will know."

"Oh. Right." Akako nodded, eyes drifting from Kiah's face over to the cave.

"Then we're going in," Roxas said calmly, "without Kiah."

"Right," Kiah said, and began backing away.

"Freeze!" Kaede shouted, and pointed a narrow finger at Kiah. And Kiah did freeze, just as she was jumping over a fallen tree trunk. She hung there in midair, eyes darting around frantically.

"How did you-" Kiah began.

"Silence!" Kaede said, pointing her finger at Kiah again. The girl was silent. Her mouth moving but no sound came out.

"You'll stay here," Kaede explained, "So that if anything happens to me or my friends, you'll be stuck here forever."

In her head, Kiah knew that the Dark Lord would be able to break any spell this newbie witch could throw at her. But she blinked twice to show agreement.

"OH! Your thoughts reminded me! I have to set a password on the spell, so nobody can fix you but me." Kaede thought for a moment. "Ah! Password is _cavolo._"

I could barely keep from laughing. Kaede eyed me. "Shut up, Ariana! It's not like you could think of anything better!"

And with that, we headed towards the cave. When we walked in, Yuki snorted. "Some super-secret hiding place!" she scowled. "We walked right in and not a single alarm went off! Ha!"

"Careful, Yuki," Kaede said softly. "Something about this is too easy!"

Then their eyes flew to the back of the tiny cave. There, bound and gagged, was Chiho.

"Chiho!" Kaede screamed, and ran forward. Chiho was shaking her head and bugging out her eyes, thrusting her chin towards the entrance and screaming as best she could with a rag tied over her mouth.

"Guys!" she shouted when the gag was gone. "Go back! It's a trap!"

"Yes it is," said a mew voice, and there was a BANG and then darkness.

"Chi chi?"

"Yes, Kae-kae?"

"What was that?"

"That would be the trap I was warning you about. Smart matter cave."

"Oh." There was a silence. "That sucks."

"You think?" I wailed at them.

"Oh yes," said the new voice again. "I think so too."

The voice sent chills down my spine and made me cringe. It filled my mind with images of executions and murder scenes, mostly pictures from our history textbooks on Rusty wars. A dim light was flicked on, revealing bodies carved into the walls. They were posed so that they appeared to be screaming, arms outstretched or curled into fists.

"A person for each I've defeated," the man said. He wore a black robe that was very Grim Reaper. His face was hidden, his hands lost behind layers of fabric. "And soon, five more girls and four more boys. Where will I find room?"

"That's disgusting," Sora said. He crinkled his nose in an overly girly way.

"Like, Ohmigod, you're SO morbid!" Akako said, then laughed.

"You're laughing?" Then hooded man looked up. "These carvings alone have scared even the most defiant and dignified people to their graves. Why aren't you, a group of teens, afraid?"

"Because," I said, rolling my eyes. I'd picked up on this technique during my training: make courage from lies. "I've played KH so many times, and I've been inside 'cursed' Egyptian tombs from back in the Rusty eras. I've gone to work with my dad; he's a CSI. I see corpses, I see blood, I've seen my own ancestors lying bloody in their rooms in pathetic crime scene remakes, and I see fear every day. Why should statues of people I've never seen scare me?"

"Because they represent real people. And the walls are lined with them," jeered the man.

"So what?" Yuki popped up. "We've worked with Tally Youngblood. We've seen her and her work. We've seen the people who got in her way, and we know how many of them we've seen." Lies, yes, but very convincing lies.

"I've seen worse than a statue," Kaede said.

"ENOGUH!" the man shouted. The light went out. "You talk big in the light. Can you do well when I can see you"-a hand knocked out my knees and I fell-"and you can't see me?" Next to me, I heard Kaede fall.

There was another thud, followed by Akako's voice: "Owww…"

Then Kaede: "You think that hurt? Well, it hurt even more for me." There was a pause, then she added, "Translation: Get off of my butt."

"Oops!" Akako fake-giggled as she rolled off of Kaede.

"What is wrong with you freaks?" yelled the voice. The sound was equal to nails on a chalkboard; ear-piercing and annoying, it made you want to kill whoever was doing it.

"We have infrared," I called out from beneath Akako. "And Akako, get offa my gut. I know you can see me."

"Infrared? That defeats the whole point!" the voice howled. "Kiah neglected to tell me this. Perhaps she doesn't want Sho released, after all…hmph."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I blurted. I wriggled free from the pile of girls and slapped the voice right across the face. Or the front of his hood. Whatever. "Get a life!"

A green light shot out of the guy's sleeve. A spell. It missed me narrowly. I screamed.

Kaede ran up next to me and put up a bubble-shaped shield. It was light blue: only a medium shield. It was the best she could do, being only so far into her training.

"Good job, Ariana. Piss of the more powerful dude," she scowled at me. The others were hiding behind us, except for Cloud.

"I told you I'd go on a mission with you," he said to Kaede. He pulled out a sword, making me do a double take. Where the hell had he been hiding that? And, um, hello? Why hadn't he thought to break that out earlier? Like, _before_ we were all trapped inside one of Kaede's medium-strength spell-shields with powerful spells being thrown at us?

"Hello? Why didn't you break that out _before_ I slapped the guy?" I demanded.

"Why didn't you tell us you were going to slap him?" Cloud said, rolling his eyes.

Kaede laughed a little. The shield wavered. I screamed again.

"Focus, would you?" I cried out to Kaede.

"A little hard to focus when killing spells are being thrown at you by something you can't even look around to find!" The shield quivered. There was a moment where the spells stopped. Kaede put up another shield. Just in time. More spells came at us, and the old shield quivered one last time before shattering.

"Give up," the voice said, sounding louder now. "Give up, you puny little weaklings."

"HOW DARE YOU!!!" Chiho screamed. All but Kaede whirled around to stare at the tiny girl. Her brown eyes, normally peaceful and cheery, were flashing with rage. She stuffed her hand into her pocket and pulled out four small crystals.

"Oh, yes," the voice mocked. "Rocks are going to defeat me!"

"Maybe not rocks, but these might do the trick!" Chiho threw a crystal in one direction, then threw the other three in the other directions. They exploded into bursts of light and sharp crystal shards, and a hooded figure was briefly outlined before it exploded in the same way our shield had.

"Holy cra-…er, I mean, _crud_. Where'd psycho Chiho come from?" Kaede asked.

"From her usual hiding place: in the closet next to my lucky minibomb kit." Chiho smiled shyly, then collapsed.

**A/N: haha bet you hate me and my cliffy-s!!! Too bad. Until tomorrow…(or not. Probably no updates this weekend. Got parties to go to!!!) Oh, yeah, and Ariana was laughing because "cavolo" means "cabbage" in italian. ha, ha.**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Hi. what's up? I think the next chapter should be a songfic. What do you think? Tell me in a review! But, um, read my chappy first. R & R!**

**Free invisible cookies in the review room...thanks!**

"Wow, that guy was a freak!" Yuki said brightly. She dusted off her clothes and laughed a little.

Sora looked at us like we were insane.

"You girls are _really _weird," he said.

"Yeah, but that's why we're friends!" I said, throwing my arms around my friends.

"Get offa me," Yuki said after a minute.

Cloud looked at us. He shook his head and smirked a little. It was about as close to a smile as we'd ever seen on his face.

"Ari, you shouldn't have slapped him," Chiho said. "I mean, the least you could've done was whack him with a keyblade!"

"Ugh, whatever." I rolled my eyes but laughed. "He needs to be beaten upside the head and upper body with a blunt object."

"Wha-?" Kaede looked at me.

"You mean like a really big baseball bat?" Chiho asked, brightening.

"A really big _metal_ baseball bat." I nodded enthusiastically.

"With spikes on it, too!"

"OMG, YES!!!" I snapped my fingers in the air. "I love that!"

"We'll do that next time. At least he won't be able to shoot spell-y thingies at us if he's unconscious!" Akako laughed.

"Right." Ren looked at us, squishing himself between Yuki and Kaede. "Next time we happen to have city-made weapons and he happens to attack us when we all have our spiky super-sized metal bats with us, we'll all beat him senseless."

Yuki shoved him. "Shut up!"

"Yeah! Don't ruin the happy!" I protested. Chiho laughed.

"Wow. You just got out of you first battle, Chiho was just un-captured, and there's a girl who Kaede froze hanging in midair over some tree in the forest. And you girls are laughing?" Roxas looked at us like we were nuts. "Are you _all_ crazy?"

"A little," Yuki said. She smiled peacefully.

"Yes," Kaede said. She snickered behind her hand, her shoulders shaking.

"Duh," Chiho put in. She rolled her eys.

"No," Akako said. "I'm sane."

We all looked at her. "No, you are not," Yuki said.

"Maybe."

"And I'm just high offa sugar cubes!" I laughed and flashed a double peace sign with both of my hands. . "No alcohol required!"

"Right." Sora nodded. "And I'm not addicted to chocolate milk."

"Oh, shut up will you?" Yuki teased. "We know you stole three more of those packets from Ari!"

Sora turned red. "I ran out after the first day," he admitted.

"One: don't call me Ari. I hate that. Two: we did _not_ all know that! Nobody told me! Three: I'm gonna ignore that last comment."

"Okay, sorry, Ari," Chiho teased without breaking a smile.

"No prob, _Chi_." I rolled my eyes as the other laughed too.

"Don't call me Chi. I hate that." She grinned at me, and I heard myself laugh.

Everyone laughed as we headed off towards the forest to go un-freeze Kiah.

Once I knew she wasn't a Sora-stealer, I realized she could be a pretty cool friend. And she had gotten Kaede addicted to KH, so we really owed Kaede's anime obsession to her. Kaede wouldn't have been our bestest buddy if she didn't like anime. So we owed our friendship with Kaede to Chiho. Really, how bad could she be? All KH-lovers are awesome. And she wasn't just a KH-lover, she was a KH-_live_r. **(A/N: I mean like she lives in KH, not that she's literally a liver. How gross would that be?!) **The girl had serious weapon smarts too: a minibomb kit, exploding crystals, keyblades, oversize spiky metal bats… She had the best weaponry I'd seen since Tally Youngblood took down the Armory in her city.

Maybe Chiho wasn't so bad after all…

**A/N: a pretty uneventful chapter…and pretty short, too. Only 666 words. Grrrrr. Oh, well.**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Hi guys. Just saying: don't expect a lot of updates this week. Today, I'm updating because if I don't, NBB might eat me. Tomorrow, I'll be either dying my dress or finding a way to be a BLACK cat with a RED dress…XD Wednesday…well, do I even need to tell you? Thursday, I'll be eating my way through a massive pile of candy. Friday, I'll be working out a diet plan. Saturday, I'll be busy getting yelled at for even designing a diet plan with my freaky metabolism. He he.**

**So as you can see, I'll be busy this week. But I bet you guys will be too, right? Right.**

We stopped before the fallen tree trunk where we'd left Kiah.

"Well," Chiho said after a silence. "This is awkward."

"Ya think?" Yuki snapped.

Everyone else was staring at the space over the tree trunk. The very space where we'd left Kiah. It was empty now, with only a small bit of her skirt snagged on a tree branch and a pair of footprints that hadn't been there before. There were only two prints though, and after that they simply disappeared.

A ping showed up in the corner of my eyescreen. "Guys, I got a ping," I told them. It was black, with a red glow around it. I opened it with a simple twitch of my finger. It read:

_Dearest Twin (and her annoying eavesdroppers),_

"Chiho?" I looked up. "I think it's directed at you."

"Ooooh," Chiho said softly. Thanks to living in Soul Kingdom all her life, she didn't get surge anymore than the legendary Sly Girls did. Not even an eyescreen or a skintenna.

_Since you took the liberty of freezing me, the Dark Lord took the liberty of un-freezing me. And I am not going to forget that you let your own twin be frozen, silenced, and left. _

_Dearest reflection, I will not forget._

"Well." Yuki crossed her arms. I'd forwarded the others the messages. "I'll bet that was a happy-killer."

"Wow. Thank you, Captain Obvious," Akako said.

"No prob, Sir Stupid." Yuki tossed back.

"Guys," Kaede snapped. "Focus, would you?"

"Yeah," Chiho said. "My freaky reflection just sent me a ping through Ariana. And you two are _laughing_?"

"Well…yes." Akako drew a circle in the dirt with her foot. Yuki was doing the same, but she was shaking with refrained laughter so her circle was coming out wobbly and crooked. It was a perfect recreation of a puddle left over from the rainy season.

"We didn't see the ping yet." Yuki mumbled.

"Check it. Sort by popularity; that'll get us right at the very bottom." Kaede rolled her eyes. We all knew that she sometimes regretted turning down the Pretties. She was a party girl on the inside, and we all had to work hard to keep her mind bubbly.

"Ooh, Kaede, you aren't a total Extra anymore! You're at a firm 1,999,785!"

"In a city of a few million, that's still a lot, Yuki."

"Whatever. You know you're not destined to be a Pretty."

"Uh-huh." Kaede pulled a twig out of her hair and swatted aside her long bangs. "Someone tell me why I agreed to be an Extra? Why I chose dirt over parties?"

"Because Cloud wouldn't like a high-maintenance Pretty girl, now would he?" Akako whispered.

Kaede sighed. "Right."

"Well…I guess we should go back to the cave. No use chasing Kiah now." I looked up at my friends we were exhausted, mud-covered, and hungry. Even if we found Kiah, we wouldn't be able to get her. We'd just get captured again.

**A/N: Another short chappy…oh well too bad. Hey does anyone have costume suggestions? My mom cancelled my costume order, so all I have is:**

**-a red devil dress (long-sleeve, stops around my knees, ragged/ torn ends) (might dye it black, if I can get permission) (also have a pitch fork: black handle, red glitter spiky thingy-s with gold glitter tips)**

**-a "bad spirit" costume (black and white pleated skirt, black tank top with white skull, black and white pom-pom, black/white arm covers)**

**-knee high Juicy socks (lots of fun colors…)**

**-normal clothes (grey long-sleeve minidress, black short-sleeve minidress, jeans, black/white kimono style minidress, black tank top, red tank top, denim micromini, grey leggings, black leggings, black kitten heels)**

**-black kitty ears with red insides**

**-black lace collar with blue bell**

**-TONS of costume jewelry**

**-black/ white skull print scarm/headband thingy**

**-Pirates of The Carribean gold necklace: it looks like those pirate gold coins that they have.**

**Help me out, kay? Thank you! XOXO**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: I know I said I'd be too busy to update, but ya know what? I found a black dress that used to be my mom's from Halloween last year, so I'm gonna cut the hem of it and use that. Which means I won't have to spend three hours bent over the bathtub swishing my stupid red dress in a tub of hand-killing, possibly-skin-burning black dye. Yay! Besides, I can't focus enough to do my homework. I'm a bad, baaaad kitty! ( :**

"Well." Kaede said after she swallowed her bite of ChickenNoodCass (chicken noodle casserole). "This really sucks."

"I know!" Yuki complained. "This casserole isn't even cooked all the way through!" She crinkled her nose and dumped it back into the water purifier. She scooped up a little more water from the natural pool in the back, then twisted a dial on the side of the little thing. She scowled as she crossed her arms and sat back down.

"Not to say I don't pity you and your casserole _issues_, but I didn't mean that." Kaede rolled her eyes. "I meant Kiah escaping."

"Ohhhhh," Yuki said, laughing. "I knew that."

Everyone laughed. "Shut up, Yuki," Ren said.

Everyone laughed harder. I almost dropped my plate of casserole.

"Ren, haven't you learned that I don't shut up?"

"We all have," Akako mumbled.

"Shut up, Aka-chan!" Yuki slapped Akako's arm.

"Hey!" Akako cried, steadying her almost-dropped plate. She hit Yuki back.

"Owww!" Yuki scampered to hide behind Kaede. "Kae-kae, Aka-chan hit me!!!"

Kaede gasped with mock horror. "Akako-chan! That's just _mean_."

Still hiding behind Kaede, Yuki stuck out her tongue.

"Okay, focus!" I put down my plate and clapped twice. "We need a plan to defeat what's-his-face!"

"The Dark Lord?" Sora asked.

I rolled my eyes. "More like the Dark Dork!"

Everyone cheered. "Love that!" Chiho said laughing.

"Now then, how will we find the Dark Dork?" I asked them.

"We can get those dead-body-finding dogs and have them sniff him out?" Chiho asked.

"Nah." I shook my head. I could feel the long layers swishing against my knees, but for once that didn't calm me or even make me smile. "Cadaver dogs are too expensive, not to mention rare here."

"But you have to admit that guy was majorly smelly," Sora insisted.

"True!" Chiho shouted. "I could smell him even when I was in my cell."

"Ewwww," everyone moaned.

Chiho shuddered. "_You're_ telling _me_? At least you didn't have to smell it for three days!"

"EEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!" everyone screeched again.

"Guys," Kaede whispered. "Shhh…"

Everyone was silent.

"Hear that?" Kaede whispered.

We strained our ears. And we could all hear it: softly, footsteps were falling outside the cave. There were no voices, just the steady _thud…thud…thud…_of the footsteps.

"Quick," I whispered. "Get the matter hacker."

Yuki gave me the tiny rectangle. I grabbed our smart matter blankets and tacked them to the walls, bonding them quickly. They formed a small wall, but if the intruders thought to knock on the walls, it would fall apart quickly. So I put the device to the blankets and made them into the same texture of the walls, and made them hard. We blew out all of the candles but one, and turned off the touchlights. We huddled together towards the back, trying hard not to breathe too loudly.

Our hoverboards' lifters were off, but the green lights were still glowing. So we all stepped onto them. Our feet were over the lights, and we were all ready to fly out the small hole in the ceiling if we needed to.

Someone knocked on the wall. We all gasped quietly but held our breath for a moment.

"Kiah," a voice on the other side said. The Dark Dork. I looked at Kaede, who bugged her eyes out in response. "I'm losing my patience with you."

"But, my Lord, I heard their voices. And their skintenna signals led me here." Kiah's voice was slightly muted by the wall.

"Hmmm…I wonder if this is smart matter?" A new voice. This one sounded like a more mature girl.

"Well, we will find out, won't we?" The Dark Dork's voice sounded again, making us cringe.

I looked at Yuki. She shrugged, but I could see her crash bracelets were strapped on again. I nodded and strapped on mine, then flashed the lights quickly. Everyone strapped on theirs, and we began to rise one by one.

I went first. I crossed my arms so that my face was sheltered from the branches that hid our secret exit. They scratched at my arms. I shrugged away a leaf impatiently as I pulled off to the side. Kaede rose next, the scent of rain following her. The Dark Dork had a matter hacker too? So not fair. They came out faster now, the wall seeming to evaporate. I noticed that Kaede and Yuki had their non-smart matter backpacks strapped on their shoulders. Sora's pockets bulged, and I wondered if he'd grabbed the food packets. I smiled softly.

"If we get separated, meet at the usual place!" Tally Youngblood and the cutters had always met each other at the tallest tower in the closest Rusty ruins. We had reversed this, deciding to meet at the _lowest_ building in the closest Rusty ruins. This meant underground, sometimes. And the Rusties had been totally wasteful: everything was made of metal, so there were hoverboard paths everywhere.

We nodded at Yuki and began to speed up. They would know we'd been there, once they found the furniture, and saw our footprints. Even if they didn't, they would notice that someone had set up a smart matter wall in a seemingly random cave. Besides, Kiah had heard our voices, so they must have known…

"Turn off your eyescreens," Kaede shouted. "And don't send any pings!"

"Got it," we called back.

Then we began heading toward the bluish-purple blob. It was the door back to our city. Kaede had made it for us only yesterday. We hadn't had a chance to test it yet, and we didn't know where it would drop us. But we dove in, holding hands so we wouldn't get separated. Then we were swallowed in darkness.

000000

Soon, I landed with a hard _THUMP_ on the ground. "Owww," I mumbled.

"What…?" Kaede looked around. We were dropped on a sidewalk, in front of a huge building. "Where are we?"

I looked around. There were a lot of Extra-looking people there, and very few Pretties. The buildings were tall, and the roads didn't have hoverscan codes painted on them. There were no surge-monkeys, or any signs of surge at all. There wasn't even one hovercam.

"Rusty time," whispered Yuki fearfully. "This must be like that pre-Rusty camp that Tally stumbled on! But ours is for the normal Rusties."

Akako's eyes skipped from one face to another. Her surged eyes were flashing with eyescreen patterns. "Not a single face-rank here, either," she said.

"Total Rusty time," I whispered.

"What are you talking about?" Roxas asked. He looked at us like we were as weird as these Rusty people walking around. "What's a Rusty?"

"The people who came before us," Yuki said.

"Almost wiped themselves out," Akako added, looking at the fast-moving crowd with open disdain.

"No holes in the wall to make them whatever they wanted," I said.

"They were before even the Prettytime and the mind rain!" Kaede gasped.

"Um…they look pretty modern to me," Sora said. Cloud nodded.

"But…there's no eyescreens, no flash tattoos, and look!" I pointed at a building. "The buildings are made of metal and they don't even have hoverstruts!"

"Um…is this part of that whole from-a-different-time thing you were talking about?" Ren asked.

"Don't say that. Makes it sound like we're from some weird science-fiction book," Yuki said crossly.

"Well, all we can do is blend in until Kaede can make us a new portal," Cloud said.

We nodded. "Better start with clothes," I said to them, realizing we were the only ones wearing such pretty clothes. Everyone else was wearing t-shirts and jeans, or summer-y dresses. The shoes seemed to be okay, except for the guys. Their huge shoes stood out like a chocolate-dipped marshmallow in a bag of strawberries.

I walked into a store, and they followed me. Kaede and I were the only ones who had paid any attention in Rusty History class. Kaede had conjured something that looked like Rusty money and had tucked it into our pockets.

"Excuse me?" I switched to my fourth-year English. We walked in and headed to the counter. The man behind it looked up. "We need some new clothes."

"My God! What are you wearing?"

"Um…" I paused.

"We were going to an anime convention, and our luggage was lost," Kaede cut in with effortlessly smooth English.

"Can you help us?" Yuki asked in awkward English.

"Yes, yes, of course! You poor things."

We picked out tons of new things: jeans and sweaters and t-shirts and everything else we wanted. The guys just got some simple t-shirts and jeans. The man also picked out some new shoes: sandals for them, tennis shoes for us.

When we were done, Kaede paid with her freshly conjured "money" and we left. She used her flawless English to get us a room in one of the biggest buildings. We took turns changing in the bathroom.

Cloud emerged in black-ish blue jeans and an oversize black t-shirt. (His hair was still gravity-defying.) Sora was wearing a darker gray t-shirt and light wash jeans. Ren ended up with tan shorts and a blue t-shirt, and Roxas had dark green shorts and a black t-shirt.

Kaede had put together an outfit of a red baby-doll style shirt and a pair of black jeans. She still wore her red and black flats. Her crown necklace hung around her neck still.

Akako was wearing an oversize sweatshirt that was black with green writing and had been paired with jeans. She had used her gold chains as a decorative belt.

Yuki was wearing a black minidress belted with a white braided belt. She also had on black leggings and her SK shoes.

Chiho had on a denim mini, light gray leggings, and a red t-shirt with "Admi(RED)" written across the chest in white block letters. The red bows on her black SK flats matched the red ribbon she'd tied around her neck.

I was trying on a bright blue cable knit sweater and a pair of dark wash jeans. Rolling my eyes, I said, "Ugh, can I keep my other dress on?"

Kaede studied it. "Yes," she said. "But maybe you should wear it without the leggings."

"Then I'm wearing it over jeans," I said firmly.

"I've got no objections," Kaede replied.

We walked down the hall. "Stop!" Kaede cried out. We did. "Look!"

Our eyes flew to the spot on the wall she had indicated. "Big deal, Kaede. We know the Rusties waste metal. Why should it surprise you that they put big sheets of metal on the walls?"

"Yuki, this isn't just a big sheet of metal! It's an elevator! One of the Rusties's smarter ideas," Kaede explained.

"Oooh, cool!" Akako said. Then: "What's it do?"

"It moves around and takes us to where ever we want to go in this building," I said, and smiled at Akako.

"Won't we need an interface ring?" Yuki asked.

"No," I responded coolly. "Rusties don't _have _interface rings."

"Oh." Yuki looked at Kaede. "Than how does it work?"

"You press a button, it goes there. Which you would know if you had paid attention in Rusty History class."

We laughed and stepped in. Kaede hit a button labeled "LOBBY" and we dropped down. When it stopped, we got out and followed Kaede to the front desk.

"Excuse me, sir?" Kaede tapped lightly on the desk, speaking in her flawless English. "Can you tell us where we are? My friends and I may have missed our layover flight back home and I have no clue where we are."

"Yes, miss. You're in New York City. Would you care to arrange a new flight back home?"

"Oh, no, sir. We are already workin' on that. Thank you, sir," she said with a smile. "But I do wonder, do you have map I can borrow?"

"Yes," he said and handed her a folded piece of paper. He opened it up and drew a little star on one spot. "That's where you are now: the Times Square Hotel."

"Thank you, sir," Kaede said. "Bye, now."

We walked away. "Wow," I said. "Kaede, that was amazing!"

"Thank you," Kaede said, speaking Japanese again. "I do appreciate that."

"Wow. I couldn't even understand most of what you said!" Yuki exclaimed, beaming with pride.

"Yeah? It's sixth year English."

"Coooooooool," Akako and I chorused.

"Thanks," Kaede said. Then, in a softer voice, "New York City, huh?"

"Yup! That's what the guy said, right?" I asked.

"Yes. The city that never sleeps."

**A/N: just so you guys know, they went into GAP. So ariana is SMART not to like the sweater, cuz those tend to be itchy. Ha! Always wondered what would happen if the KH people got dropped into "Rusty time" and now...well, I'll know!!!**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: hi everyone! More updates this week than I thought…but that's a good thing, riiiight?**

"Well," Yuki said dryly. "This is inconvenient."

"You think?" Kaede asked, rolling her eyes.

"No, she doesn't," Chiho said.

"Whatever. This sucks," I replied dully.

"No duh," Akako mumbled.

We were all stuck to the ground.

Yuki and Kaede had been leading us, and we had walked behind them like good little people, mostly because they had the maps. We had all walked through a patch of wet stuff on the sidewalk. It had looked the same as the rest of the sidewalk. Maybe a little darker.

Akako had screamed that it was a Rusty trap. Many people had looked at us like we were Nobodies that had tried to sit with the Pretties at lunch. Kaede hadn't even looked up. She'd just kept on walking, telling us it was nothing to worry about.

Now we were in trouble. The stuff on our pants had hardened. It was cold and stiff. And for a while we couldn't move around as well as before because the stuff was totally caked on our pants and it rubbed against our legs like a pair of loose jeans whenever we moved. But unlike denim, it hurt. The stuff was rubbing our legs completely raw. And now, it had us stuck to the ground.

"I told you it was a trap," Akako said sourly. "But no, you guys were just soooo sure it was nothing. Well, this _nothing_ sure hurts my legs. I mean, really. If we'd stopped and scraped some of this crud off of our jeans, maybe we could walk _without_ killing our legs! Or rather, maybe we could still _walk_!"

"Is it Smart Matter, maybe?" I asked, pulling the matter hacker out and trying it out. But it didn't work. We were still stuck.

"Yuki, this hurts," Kaede whined.

"Extras are tough," Yuki insisted as she tugged at one legs to try and walk. "We can get through anything!"

I snorted. "Yeah, keep hanging on to _that _dream."

Chiho tugged at one leg. "I used to be an Extra. But then I came here. You Extras aren't as tough as us mages!"

"Mages! That's it! Kaede can save us!" Yuki cried out. "She's a mage!!!"

"Kaede!" Chiho turned to her friend as best she could. "Use an unbinding spell!"

Kaede mumbled something and the stuff around our legs turned green. But it was still hard.

"That was a color spell! You need an unbinding spell!"

Kaede squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. "Okay," she said after a moment. She mumbled something else, and a red can appeared and squirted the stuff around our legs with water.

"That was an extinguishing spell!"

Kaede mumbled again, and brown stuff got SPLAT-ed all over the stuff.

"Ewww," we all moaned.

"What kind of spell was _that_?" I asked Chiho.

She shrugged.

Kaede looked at us apologetically. "It wasn't a normal spell. I said 'crap' because I messed up the last spell and…"

"EWWWWWWWWW!!!" everyone screamed, and we began trying desperately to get out.

Kaede mumbled the extinguishing spell again and our legs were rinsed off. But that was the only good thing that happened. Whenever Kaede mumbled something, another weird thing would happen to our legs: they sprouted moss, they turned purple, they glowed, they got smaller (which hurt really bad) and they sizzled. At one point, the dried gunk was on fire. Ren had screamed when that had happened, even though it wasn't even touching him and I knew he couldn't feel the heat through the thick layers of stuff around our legs.

Finally, Kaede said something and the stuff melted away.

"Thank GOD!" Yuki cried out, jumping away. She rubbed her legs. "Sheesh. What was that stuff?"

"I believe," Ren said from the back of the group, "That the stuff was a little something called cement."

"What's ceee-meee-nt?" Yuki asked.

"Cement. It's what Rusties used to make, like, everything!"

"Oh." I looked back at the slowly dissolving puddle of melted cement. "Well, that's awkward!"

"What? Why?" Everyone looked at me like I was nuts.

"Because. They're called the Rusties, we know, but they used more cement that metal! It's just that the metal is all that's left of the Rusty civilizations."

"But their entire buildings are made of metal!" Kaede insisted.

"Noooo," I said, "The frames are. The rest is just cement. Maybe it'll be covered in carpet, or wood, but it's still cement, not metal, that the floors and walls are made of! Not to mention all the sidewalks, and roads, and tons of other stuff!"

"And we're the reason the Rusties didn't use metal for all that," whispered a new voice. It was the mature one that we'd heard outside the cave. It was speaking English.

At that point, we did the very thing anyone else would have when they heard a voice associated with their enemy in their ear. We screamed.

"Shut up!" the voice scolded. We squinted behind us. Nobody was there.

I looked harder. "Sneak suits," I whispered, also in English.

"You're a smart little Ugly, aren't you?" the voice said. "Yes, sneak suits."

A head was revealed, little by little. Celtic swirls spun around on her face. Flash tattoos. Her eyes were sharp, her cheekbones strongly defined. Her irises were coal black, her skin a pretty tanned color. Her hair was dark brown.

"Tally Youngblood?" I asked.

"A smart Ugly who pays attention in your History class. Mmm, rare."

"Oh, yes," said another voice. A dirty-blonde counterpart to Tally revealed her face. Flash tattoo snakes writhed at her temples.

"Shay," whispered Kaede in her usual flawless English. Shay was practically her idol. I wondered if Kaede was going to faint again.

"Um, yeah," Shay said.

A third head was revealed. She was Special too, so she had the sharp teeth and flash tattoo that resembled the swirling pattern on a Rusty hypnotist's pendulum. But she was Asian.

"Aya-chan!" Chiho cried out.

"Yes," Aya said in hesitating English. "How do you know?"

"Aya-la, you're a Cutter too, you know," Tally reminded her.

"Aya, Tally, Shay, I'm Ariana. This is Cloud, Ren, Sora, Roxas, Yuki, Kaede, Chiho and Pumpkin Head…I mean Akako." I blushed at the mistake.

Yuki smirked at Akako, who stuck her tongue out at Yuki.

"Call Ariana Ari, kay?" Akako said.

"Nooo, don't!"

"Yeah, I'll never remember all that." Tally crossed her arms.

"Do you guys speak Japanese?" I asked in Japanese.

"I do," Aya said. She had switched too, and now was able to talk a little faster. "They don't."

"Oh," I said in English. "I guess I'll stick to English?"

"Yes," Tally said. "That would be nice, so I know you aren't plotting to get us."

"Speaking of plotting," Yuki cut in. "Why were you with the Dark Dork?"

"The Dark _who_?" Shay asked.

"The Dark Lord, I mean," Yuki said quickly.

"Oh. Well, he wants to expand the city. We don't. Put us together and there's going to be hell to pay." Shay shrugged casually.

"And it won't be us paying," Tally said, baring her teeth.

"Right." Chiho looked at us, shifting her weight from one foot to another nervously. "Um…so, you're plotting against him, not us, right?"

"Nooo," Tally said sarcastically. "We're plotting against you, and so we're telling you our evil plan with…what did you call him? Oh, yeah, the Dark Dork. We're telling you our evil plan with the Dark Dork's name superimposed over yours."

We laughed. "Okay," Kaede said.

"On that subject. What brings you here, to Rusty time?" Shay looked directly at Kaede, who looked like she was going to faint. Standing next to the guy you'd fangirled over and being looked at (and talked to) by your idol might make you a little shell-shocked too.

"Kaede here tried to build us a portal to our city, but it really didn't work. It dropped us in a modern-day Rusty recreation." I rolled my eyes.

"Recreation?" Aya looked at me like I was crazy.

Tally smiled, revealing every pointed tooth in her mouth. "Ari-wa, you're in real Rusty time. This is New York City, circa 2008."

"What?" I stared at her.

"NYC, 2008." Tally rolled her eyes.

"What?"

"NYC, 2008," Shay repeated.

"What?"

"NYC, 2008," Aya said.

"What?"

"Ari-wa, you're in Rusty time now. And you'll be here until Kaede-la can open up a new portal."

**A/N: oooh, shocker! Bet you all saw that one coming...XD oh. and if you go to CWMS, vote Lauren Lee for Best Personality! And Nisha Dalvie for Best Hair. Okay? Thank you!**


	19. Chapter 19

"Some one get her up," a voice said. "C'mon, the girl has got to wake up some time."

"But…" I heard Yuki's voice. She was definitely further away.

"Wake her up, Shay-la," the first voice said/

There was a stab in my arm and I felt tingles race through me. I shot up, surging with newfound energy. "AAAAH!" I screamed. "Where am I?"

There were a few people gathered around me. I remembered them. But what I couldn't remember why I was in a bed, in a well-lit hotel room surrounded by people who all looked really concerned.

"What the hell?" I shouted again.

"Shay-la, what did you stick in her?" Tally looked at her friend, her black eyes doubtful.

"Wake-up juice." Shay's voice sounded indignant.

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is, Tally-wa. Look"-Shay held up a tube with a glistening needle-"see? Wake-up juice."

"'Amnesia?'" Tally read. "Shay-la, you gave her amnesia."

"YOU _WHAT_?" I shouted, pounding the bed.

"Damn, she's hyper," Tally said, watching me but talking to Shay.

"I know! Too bad she has to be KO-ed for us to give her another vaccination…"

"Don't put it like that, Shay-la. It sounds like she's a dog or something. 'It needs another vaccination.' Sounds like a vet talking about a dog."

"Point," Shay said. "Sorry, Aya-la." There was a pause. Then Shay said, "Goddamn it, where'd I put the KO-juice?"

"The _what_?" I gasped. I started to try and get up, but I apparently hadn't been given the wake-up juice. I just didn't have the energy.

Ironic. I had energy to scream, but not to get out of bed. Hm.

"Ah! Here it is!" Shay pulled out another tube and fastened on another needle. "Hold still, Ari-wa, or this might hurt a little…"

"What? No. It won't hurt me-" I started, my eyes fixed on the glistening needle tip that was coming towards me.

"That's the spirit," Tally interrupted.

-"because it's not going anywhere near me!" I finished, talking over Tally.

"Yes, it is," Shay said. She dove for me and I felt a little prick in my neck.

"No it's not…" I said sleepily, before everything went dark.

000000

"Ah! That's the right stuff! We got it all taken care of! Malaria, amnesia, lethargy…and her stomach is temporarily Special. This Rusty food is _nasty_. And Shay-la? Remind me to take away your amnesia shots. This was such a waste of a perfectly good chemical."

Shay grumbled. "She isn't awake, Tally-wa."

"Oh…hehe I gave her the Special reflexes shot…oops." Tally sounded embarrassed. "Here we go…the anti-sleepy…shot-y…thingy…Oh, whatever I'll just give it to her!" There was another prick in my neck and I shot up, screaming.

"Holy $#$$ &&! What the & did you stick in my $ neck?!" I shouted, letting loose with another stream of curses.

The others observed me carefully. When I was done ranting, Aya said, "Tally-wa, I think you gave her too much."

"Maybe," Tally said. "Maybe not."

"No," I spoke up. "You stuck me in the same spot as the other shots you gave me! The exact same spot."

"Ouch," Kaede said softly.

"No kidding."

"Well, you're up now, Ari-wa, so let's get moving! Get changed, and we'll go." Tally tossed a sneak suit at me. "Put this on under everything and set it to skin-colored or some sort of outfit because your clothes kind of suck." Tally surveyed the hotel room's closet, which we'd filled with our clothes. "Seriously. GAP, Ari-wa? I thought you were more of an H & M girl."

"Maybe." I pulled out a black t-shirt with "HONO(RED)" written across the chest in red block letters and a pair of jeans. I went into the bathroom to change. First I put on the sneak suit, just as Tally had told me. I set it to the color and texture of skin. Twitching my finger, I saw the sneak suit's different options spread across my eyescreen. I made the suit fire-resistant and impossible to cut. Then I slipped on the t-shirt and jeans. I added some slip-on shoes and walked out.

"Ta-da!" I shouted, mostly because Shay's wake-up juice was still circulating in my blood system.

"Coolness!" Kaede said. "But you…um, Ariana, you don't have a face."

"Oops!" I said, after a moment of silent panic. I tugged away the sneak suit's hood. "Better?"

"No," Kaede said. She looked at me like I was crazy.

"What?!" I ran over to the mirror she held and looked at myself. "EEEEEE!!!!!!! I DON'T HAVE A REFLECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Vampire!" shouted Chiho. She jumped up and hid behind Sora, who shook her off impatiently.

"AAAH!" I screamed.

"AAAAHHHHH!!!" Chiho shouted, running around and around it little panicked circles on the bed. She fell off. "Ouch," she said crossly.

"Poor Chi-wa," I said, rolling my eyes and smiling.

"Sounds like Chihuahua," Akako noted.

"Who are you calling a Chihuahua?" Chiho demanded.

Kaede started laughing. Then everyone else did.

Then I noticed that the mirror Kaede held had a faint glow. "Kaede?"

"Yes?"

"Why is the mirror glowing?"

"Because I put a spell on it when you were in the bathroom to make it look like you had no reflection 'cause I knew it would freak you out."

"Oh. And Kaede?"

"Yes?"

"Last words?"

"What?"

"Strange last words." And with that, I launched myself at Kaede in an attempt to kill her. She screamed and floated upwards, pushing off of the bed with her feet. She bounced off the walls until she was out of the room. I chased after her screaming, "GET BACK HERE!!!" as loudly as I could. The rest of the group just followed us, laughing and strolling along like I wasn't about to kill Kaede.

Then Kaede stopped. We had long since left the city borders. But now, we were in front of a large cave. For some strange reason, it had lollipops taped to it, and well as long pieces of licorice. I looked at it. There were cardboard letters with lollipops and peppermints glued to them. They spelled out CANDY MOUNTAIN.

"Candy Mountain!" cried out Sora sarcastically. "Let's go in!"

We laughed and rolled our eyes.

"Nooo, they're going to steal our kidneys!" Kaede screamed.

"what are you talking about?" I asked.

"Oh. We went on YouTube while you were KO-ed and watched all these videos. They were hilarious!" Yuki smiled at me.

"Cloud-kun _laughed_," Kaede told me in a whisper.

"No!"

"YES!" Chiho screamed back.

I looked at her. "Do you even know what we're talking about?"

"NO!!! I JUST LIKE SCREAMING!!!!!!!"

I looked back at Kaede, who shrugged.

Akako laughed. "Wow, Chi. How much sugar did you have?"

"Ummmm…I dunno…" Chiho drew a circle in the dirt with the toe of her shoe. She blushed.

"Well, I do know that we're not going in there!" I jerked my thumb at the cave. "Whether it's the Dark Dork or kidney-stealing unicorns or more candy, it's all bad."

000000

Nobody's POV 

Kiah came out from behind the cave. She looked around and realized the group hadn't gone into the cave. "DAMN IT!" she shouted. "I thought Candy Mountain was absolutely irresistible!"

Frustrated, she stomped away to give another report on her failure to the Dark Lord.

**A/N: Kiah is such a dork…but we love her anyway, right? Riiiight?!?!?!?! (hello? This is the part where you nod!)**


	20. Chapter 20

**

* * *

A/N: Songfic-y! The song is "My Immortal" by Evanescence. BTW this isn't supposed to sound all emo-y but I re-read it and realized it kind of did…sorry. Wow. 20 chapters… Keep R & R-ing! Free invisible cookies in the review room!**

We'd been walking around for a while now. We'd just wanted to get out, get back to our hotel, and maybe order room service. But now that wasn't happening. Because we were lost.

Chiho kept running up to talk with Sora, who had somehow ended up leading us. "Are you sure we haven't been here before?" she would ask, and he would shake his head and walk a little faster.

"Look," we heard Chiho say. "I put that here!" She pointed at a little bundle of sticks, which spelled out "TOLD YA WE'RE LOST" on the ground.

"Clever," Sora said dryly, then kept walking.

Then, suddenly, we stopped. There was a hand sticking out from a bush. Sora pulled out his keyblade and walked over. Roxas followed.

"Whoa," Roxas said, backing away. "That's not something we saw before."

"What?" Chiho, Kaede, Yuki, Akako, and I pushed forward to look. "Oh. My. God."

Kiah was in the bush.

_You used to captivate me  
by your resonating light.  
Now I'm bound by the life you left behind._

"What the hell?" Yuki blurted.

"Oh my GOD," Akako screamed, backing away until she was on the edge of our circle.

Chiho stepped closer for a better look. Her eyes went huge. Her skin paled. She took a few steps backward. "Wha-?"

_These wounds won't seem to heal.  
This pain is just too real.  
There's just too much that time cannot erase._

That was when we noticed it. The faint wetness on Kiah's head, the stains on her outfit. _There was blood. _The rest of us backed away in horror. We watched as Chiho found the courage to go back over and look.

"Kiah…?" Chiho's eyes widened. She stepped over once more, so she was really close.

Yuki's glow kept Kiah's face illuminated. The girl looked frightened, as though she'd been horribly scared. Her skin was pale, her eyes open wide. And blood dripped from her hairline to her chin.

_And if you have to leave  
I wish that you would just leave.  
'Cause your presence still lingers here  
and it won't leave me alone._

"Chiho…" Sora stepped towards his little sister.

"She's…is she…" Chiho whispered, pale and shell shocked.

"I don't know," I whispered back.

"I think so," Kaede murmured.

"Yeah," Tally said. "I think so too."

Shay and Aya nodded.

"Chiho…" Sora stepped forward again. "She tried to kill you, to lock you away in a mirror, and she kidnapped you twice."

"It doesn't matter," Chiho whispered. "She…she was right here just days ago. Talking, plotting, and everything…"

"Plotting to kill you, and probably the rest of us," Cloud spoke up.

"But…I…she was some one who we knew. And now she's…she's…" Chiho gestured at Kiah helplessly.

_Your voice has chased away  
all the sanity in me._

"I know," Kaede whispered softly. "But…she was…well, maybe it's better this way."

"Better? Some one died, and you call that _better_?" Chiho's eyes widened even more.

_And if you have to leave  
I wish that you would just leave.  
'Cause your presence still lingers here  
and it won't leave me alone._

"Guys…is she really…I mean…"

"Yes, Chiho." Tally said softly. She stepped forward, her black eyes illuminated by the moon and her flash tattoos pulsing on her face. "I've seen dead people before. And Chiho…it looks like Kiah's dead."

* * *

**A/N: ooooooh. creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy!sorry to stick a creepy chappy right after a happy one, but I just re-read Inner Circle (by Kate Brian) and well, you'd feel a little morbid after reading those, too.**


	21. Chapter 21

"Okay," Shay said coolly. " Now that you've all been sufficiently scarred for life, I'm thinking maybe we should let Tally go check out where we are."

All she got back was nine blank stares and one death glare.

"Shay," Tally said through gritted teeth. "I thought we agreed the Uglies would have to find their own way out."

"Yeah, but listen!" Shay pointed at her stomach. There was the soft sound of shrieks from inside her. We shuddered. "My stomach's nanos are gonna eat my stomach if we don't get outta here _right now_."

"Fine," Tally said. She crouched down, then jumped. Just before she started to come down, she pushed off of a tree branch, angling herself up and towards another branch. She kept going up like this until we couldn't see her. I stared after her.

"Wow," I said softly.

"No kidding," Kaede murmured.

"We had to train for like, forever before Dr. C would let us go out and do that. God, that woman was _such_ power-hungry bitch."

"Dr. C?" I asked.

"Dr. Cable. Last doctor who knew the surgery to make people _Special_." Shay smiled softly, as though recalling some distant memory. "But then Tally-wa got all rebellious and stuck her with the Special cure. Made her all gross and normal." Shay wrinkled her nose.

"And…" I looked up at her, feeling like there might be more.

"And then I learned how, and made Aya-la an honorary Cutter," a voice whispered in my ear.

I whirled around, eyes wide. But it was only Tally, laughing and picking a leaf out of her dark hair. "OMG, Tally-wa! You scared the crap outta me!"

"I always hated that saying," Tally said dryly. "The _visual_ is just _not_ PC."

"PC?" I asked.

"Politically correct." Shay snorted. "As if we have to worry about being PC if we're stuck in the forest."

"The trees are veeeeeeeery sensitive to what we say, you know." Tally smirked.

"Right. Now tell us where we are, so we can get out of the 'sensitive' trees' hearing range." Shay rolled her eyes, but smiled a little.

"Civilization is that way!" Tally pointed to the left.

Three steps later, we were back in the city.

"Okay, why did nobody point this out?" I demanded.

"Because you were supposed to be leading us out of the forest."

"Right, Aya-la," Shay said firmly. "You were."

"But that wasn't working," Tally added. She pulled out another leaf. "Ugh. These leaves are almost as annoying as Ari-wa's lack of leadership skills."

"Hey!" I cried. "Leading is Yuki's thing, not mine!"

"Sure," Shay said. "Ooh! Food!" She dashed off in another direction in an uncharacteristic spurt of bubbleheaded energy.

We laughed, but didn't chase after her. We could hear her saying, "Okay, I need a muffin. And an omelet, and…"

Shay came back in a matter of moments with her food: strips of bacon, muffins, and a lobster omelet. "Sorry, guys, but if I don't eat my stomach nanos will eat _me_."

Tally nodded and reached out to steal a bit of the omelet. "Mmm. I haven't had this since the Prettytime."

"Years ago," Shay added as she chomped into her muffin. "Chocolate. Yum."

"Shay," Tally said suddenly. "Is that meat?"

"Um. Yeah," Shay said, looking down at the bacon on her white plate.

"Ew! That was a live animal!" Tally ran a hand through her dark hair and shook away the leaves that were raked out by her hand. "A live, cute, defenseless little animal, Shay-la!"

"I know, but back home all we've got is that nasty soymeat. I wanted to try real meat!"

"Fine," Tally said crossly. "But I'm not touching it."

"More for me," Shay said, and crunched into the bacon strips.

000000

"Okay," Tally said. "Now that Shay's turned Rusty, you guys have been officially scarred for life, and I've been leaf-covered for life"-Tally pulled yet another leaf out of her hair-"what do you guys want to go do?"

"I think I can try that portal thing," Kaede whispered. All eyes flew to her. "I'm not sure, but I think I got it."

"How do you know?" Shay asked.

"Well, Cloud-kun gave me this book"-she paused as she struggled to get a heavy book out of her purse-"and it tells you how to do spells. BTW, portals are fifth-level magic. I'm only fourth. So I have an excuse to have messed up."

"Yup." I nodded quickly.

"Now, open the portal before Shay goes totally Rusty and orders another hunk of dead animal carcass," Tally said, shuddering. Ten years of living in the wild had not been enough to suck all of the Pretty-esque behavior out of Tally, much less make her eat real meat. The thought of SpagBol made with real meat instead of soymeat was just too gross to even think of. (Mostly because Tally hated SpagBol, but also because real meat was just disgusting.)

Kaede giggled and opened the book, read something one last time, then began whispering to herself. Something that resembled a black hole sprouted ahead of them. She opened her eyes, which she'd subconsciously squeezed shut, and beamed. "YES!" she cheered, and grabbed our hands. The group formed a chain, and Kaede jumped in.

000000

We opened our eyes and beamed. "Kaede!" I screamed. "This is it! Modern civilization!"

But Kaede wasn't cheering. She looked blank and almost confused. Her eyes were scanning our surroundings, so I did too.

At first, all I saw were the Japanese pagodas, the signs in kanji, the barcodes painted on the street. Then I realized that the "barcodes" were crosswalks and the people here were not speaking Japanese. They were speaking English. Also, the signs had English subtitles.

"Oh, crap," Yuki said crossly.

"Um…this is modern, but I don't think we're in Japan anymore." Akako looked around, her eyes wide.

"No," Tally said softly. "I've been here before. This is San Francisco."

"Oh, come on," Kaede moaned. "This spell is officially theeeee suckiest of all."

"Why?" Shay looked at her. "It works doesn't it?"

"Not really. It only half works." Kaede rolled her eyes. "Well, let's go. We might as well get to a hotel and get some sleep…apparently I can only do this spell once every seventy-two hours."

We all groaned, and started up the hill towards the nearest hotel.

"Mikado Inn, here we come!"

**A/N: the peoples are in Japantown, SF. Well, future-y Japantown SF. Whatevs. And BTW their bags were already packed. I didn't feel like dedicating a chappy to them packing their bags...how boring would THAT be???**


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: Hi! I was typing yesterday, and I got WAY too into it. How many chappys did I type? Well, there's this chappy. And there's the first and second chappys of the sequel. Nice, long chappys. Plus I've been texting…**_**someone**_**…recently, and so that's kept me busy too… ( ; ANYWAY. R & R, free cookies are white chocolate chunks and caramel ribbons in them…yum…. -good cookie smells come out of computer- See? Get 'em in the review room! ANYWAY (again) on with the story!**

I looked around at this place. "Mikado Inn," as Yuki had called it. It had high ceilings, and the same rice paper walls as our mini-temples in our backyards back home. But there was cement behind the walls, to keep the building from collapsing with a single gust of wind. The entire thing was built to look like a manga convention. There were people who were walking around in what I had learned was called "cosplay."

One girl was dressed in a black kimono with a red dragon swirling around it. Her black hair was long and loose, with dark blue highlights. Her skin was pale. But her eyes had been surged so they were wide, like a manga-head's. She turned to us, and I gasped. _A Pretty?_ I looked at her carefully. Was she a Natural Pretty? I didn't know any alternative…

She gasped too. "Tally Youngblood?" she cried out. "Shay? Aya?"

"Um…" Tally looked at us. "Yes?"

"Those are amazing cosplays! I've seen the real thing, and you look just like them!" The girl was gushing now, but her words made Shay raise an eyebrow.

"You've…seen us?" Shay asked softly. Her flash tattoos, which she'd somehow made stay still, started twitching slightly.

"Oh, yes," she said, smiling. "Well, pictures of you anyway. In our history textbooks…" The girl froze suddenly. "CRAP!" she screamed, hitting herself in the head. "I was doing such a good job of blending in here…Nobody ever guessed I wasn't a Rusty…crap, I just screwed myself times a million."

"Are you okay?" Aya asked, her flash tattoos twitching like Shay's.

Suddenly, Tally's eyes lit up. Her tattoos stopped twitching and they began swirling at top speed. "You're from the time after the mind-rain, aren't you?"

The girl looked at Tally's spinning tattoos and a smile slowly broke out on her face. "You are the real Tally?"

"Yeah," Tally said, quietly.

"Oh. My. God. You can get me out of here!" The girl was all but laughing with relief. Her eyes were flashing now, from purple to black to red to navy blue to green.

"What are you talking about?" Shay demanded.

The girl sunk her fingers into her forehead, pulling at the flesh greedily, but keeping a smile on her perfect face. My eyes widened. There was a thud behind us. Kaede had passed out. But those of us who remained conscious saw what the girl was doing. It wasn't blood that was revealed, but another layer of pale skin. A thin web of flash tattoos covered her face from the top of the left side of her forehead, past her eye, and faded out as they extended past her sky-high cheekbones.

When she was done, the girl lifted her sleeve, exposing her narrow wrist. It had a few long cut lines on it, but that wasn't what they were looking at. There, on her tiny wrist, was a thin pulsing C.

000000

"My name is Lena," the girl was saying. "I was a Cutter after Tally left the city, and Doctor Cable got back in power. She made a new crew of Specials, and every single one of us is a Cutter." Lena ran a hand along her cutting scars. Flash tattoo snakes swirled around her wrists and Celtic swirls covered a good fourth of her face. "This"-she gestured at the C on her wrist-"was the mark of the Cutters."

"So you were from our city?" Shay asked, pulling away from the tight circle they'd subconsciously formed to exchange a glance with Tally.

"What are you talking about?" Sora asked. He groaned as he dropped Kaede on the floor with a thud. "Damn it! She's heavy."

Cloud picked her up with out a word. Kaede's head drooped a little, and Cloud used his hand to support it, but he nearly dropped her while doing so.

"Told you," Sora said, then walked off to go force his way into the tight circle that the girls were huddled into.

"What were you talking about?" he asked again, once he was squished in next to Chiho and I.

"Lena-wa here is from our city!" Shay and Tally gasped as they hugged the girl. Her tiny body was hidden among their height.

"Wait a minute," Aya said. "If you're a Special, why aren't you as tall as Tally-wa and Shay-la?"

The two girls released their new friend so she could answer. Shay crossed her arms and glared.

"I was part of the new stealth extension. We were built for stealth." Lena's eyes were gradually going from black, to navy blue, to teal, to light blue…and slowly they became white. Then they became black, and went through the same process with red to pink to white, then the exact same thing with green. "We were all short, with eyes that could be forced to switch to whatever color would help us blend in. And we have skin that will act like a sneak suit IF we want it to. It won't blend us with the rest of the environment, but it does change our clothes so that they blend in to the background, too."

To demonstrate this, Lena stood and walked over to a plant in the corner of the lobby. She shifted her eyes to a deep, forest-like green. Lena twitched her index finger and her skin turned green and black. Her kimono shifted from a bold black and red to a rich green. Her hair's navy blue streaks had even turned green.

Lena looked like she had disappeared. The whites of her eyes were the only thing not perfectly camouflaged, and even those could pass off as the light filtering in through the tops of the trees. If Lena closed her eyes, she'd be absolutely invisible.

"Wow," I said softly.

Aya nodded. "Taking camouflage to a whole new level."

"What are you two babbling about in Japanese?" Shay demanded.

"Oops," Aya said.

"Sorry," I added.

"We were just commenting on how well Lena-wa had camouflaged herself!" Aya cheered, smiling adorably.

"Oh." Shay turned away to look back at Lena. "Good job, Lena-wa," she said with a grim smile. "But can you disappear in any setting? Could you make yourself fade away against this wallpaper?" Shay gestured at the pale rice paper walls, where posters hung to advertise exactly which Japanese singer would be here or when there would be a huge anime convention next.

Uncertainly, Lena emerged from the plant. She stood in front of one poster that read "FANIME FX" in bold red letters against a black background.

"No," Shay said. "This one." Shay indicated a white poster with black writing. It had pink cherry blossoms printed on it.

Lena swallowed hard and walked over to it. Her skin paled again, her highlights turning white. Her eyes turned so there was one white one and one black one. Her kimono picked up exactly where she was on the poster, so that the black spots and pink flowers on her dress completed the words on the poster or flowed from one side of her body to the other, bleeding off of her seamlessly.

But Lena's hair was still mostly black, her eyelashes still dark green. Her flash tattoos were still pulsing. She stood out still, to anyone who looked at her for even a moment.

"Cable still isn't all Special, now is she?" Shay asked softly. "That cure sure is permanent."

"But, Shay-la," Aya said. "You were cured too. Why aren't you as flawed as Dr. C?"

Shay's eyes flashed wickedly for a moment. But then they calmed down, revealing a state of perfect iciness.

"Because Dr. C didn't have Tally-wa to fix her," Shay said softly. "But luckily for Lena-wa, we do."

**A/N: ooooooh, DRAMA! A Cutter, stranded in Rusty times? She may have been better off with out Cloud-kun and his kick-a$$ sword here with her...**


	23. Chapter 23

"So, Lena-wa," Shay said, crossing her legs like a professional Feed-Kicker. She was perched on a silky green chair in the hotel room we'd just gotten. "How did you get here, anyway?"

"Like you guys. Special Circumstances wants info on how the Rusties destroyed themselves. _Real_ info. Not the stuff they feed us in school. And who better to send on a snooping mission than the stealth team, who are genetically designed to blend in?" Lena paused for a breath, then continued. "Um, prob being that we kinda got dropped in different dimensions. I know the others are in like, 2100 or something like that. Pings get a little fuzzy when traveling between the centuries." She shrugged and crossed her legs like Shay, propping her head up on her hand. Her other arm was draped across her leg.

"And you got dropped off here in 2007?" Tally shook her head. "Hopped off a little early in the time stream, huh?"

"What are you talking about?" Sora insisted again.

"No," Lena said simply, ignoring Sora's comment. "I just didn't hop off at exactly the same time. The time stream is really fast, you know. A century goes by in a second. Two seconds if your hoverboard is low on charge."

"Oh my God! Where am I?" Kaede shot up suddenly. Cloud had stretched her out on the hotel room's bed. Suddenly, her eyes locked on Lena. "EEEEEE! KIAH!!!!" She paused for breath. "Wait. Isn't Kiah…_dead_?"

"Kaede…I'm thinking the meds Shay-la gave you are making your vision a little fuzzy. This is Lena." Aya rolled her eyes.

Cloud smirked a little. Her was sitting at the foot of Kaede's bed, watching her to make sure she didn't hurt herself when she woke up. **(A/N: Kaede-la, Cloud-kun can't prevent mental damage. Especially not damage that was done pre-NTM. Sorry! XD) **Now, he was (almost!) laughing at her temporary insanity.

"Kiah, Lena, same diff," Kaede mumbled, and flopped back down.

"Okay, then," Yuki said, rolling her eyes. "That wasn't weird_ at all_."

"Ah-greed," I said, laughing.

"Only a little," Roxas said dryly.

"It's just the meds," Akako insisted, smiling.

"Akky, the meds don't do that on their own," Shay said with a smirk.

"I'm still awake, guys," Kaede growled.

Everyone laughed.

"Um, right," Yuki said. "Of course you are." She bugged her eyes at Shay.

"Not for long, Kaede-la," Shay said with a wink. She pulled out a little injector marked with some words in bold, black letters:

**KNOCK-OUT JUICE**

"Oh no! You are not sticking that needle in my-" Kaede blurted, shooting up again. Her eyes went wide with panic as she swiped her extra-long bangs out of her eyes.

Shay stuck it into Kaede's neck and the girl's breathing steadied immediately. Kaede fell over in bed, alarming Cloud slightly. He lifted an eyebrow but didn't move. But I noticed his grip tightened on his sword, as though prepping to take down anyone who tried to harm her.

"Nighty night!" Shay sang out, blowing the needle like a smoking gun.

Everyone else laughed harder. Even Cloud laughed, I noted. Chiho was practically hyperventilating. And Yuki had fallen off the hotel room's cushy chair.

I noticed Lena was only smiling, though. She seemed only mildly entertained by the situation. Lena seemed to sense someone watching her because her eyes flew up. They locked right on me.

And while I know that she only had her freaky features because she was a Special Circumstances agent, her dark red eyes, black hair, and swirling flash tattoos made me feel like I was staring at the devil herself.

_Stop it_, I scolded myself, shaking my head. _Hello? This is Lena. A Special Circumstances agent. Here to **protect** us, just like Shay-la and Tally-wa. Get a grip._

000000

"Heyyy! Guys! Check this out!" Akako called out from the computer. "The Sora Song."

"What?" Sora shot up from his spot in a red velvet chair.

"The Sora Song! It's a flash animation. Apparently these Rusties _do_ know how to poke fun at people without starting a war!" Yuki cracked up.

"Click it! Click it! Click it!" Chiho and I chanted.

"Nooo," Sora moaned. "Don't do it!"

But Akako did. She switched on the speakers, and an overly happy girl's voice filled the room.

_I am Sora,  
__here's my keyblade!  
__When there's heartless,  
__I'm not afraid! _

_And I can drive  
__a gummy ship!  
__Or else I'd have  
__a quivering lip._

"OH MY GOD!" Chiho shouted, laughing.

"This is terrible," Sora moaned. He reached towards the speakers to turn them off. "Shut it off!"

"No!" I squealed, swatting away his hand. "This is just _too _keyyyy-yute!"

_And all our fans,  
__like to draw us.  
__Though some can cause,  
__a shipping fuss!  
__  
__But I'll still fight,  
__with Xehanort!  
__My gosh that rhymes  
__with Voldemort!_

"Too key-yute!" I screamed again, laughing as a chibified Sora danced across the screen, waving around his keyblade.

"Ari." Yuki turned and looked me in the eye. "Get this right: it's cute. Not key-yoooot or whatever you just said. Cute."

"Key-yute!"

"Cute."

"Key-yute!"

"Cute."

"Key-"

"SHUT UP!" Shay snapped. "God."

"Shay-la, guess whaaaaat?" Yuki sang out. "There's a Cloud Song!"

"Great," Shay muttered. "Another thing for the twits to debate."

"Whatevs. The Cloud Song looks cute," I insisted.

"Cloud Song?" Kaede shot up. Cloud jumped in surprise. "Must see!"

"Whoa. What?" I looked at her.

"You're supposed to be out for the next three hours," Shay cried. She pulled out another injector, but Kaede dashed the other way and Shay missed her target.

"Cloud Song," Kaede said again, walking over and clicking on it.

An almost identical voice from the Sora Song filled the speakers, making us crack up.

_My name is Cloud.  
I have a sword!  
I fight cactuars  
because I'm bored.  
__  
I like to ride  
on chocobos.  
It's better than  
having afros. _

I will use  
_a phoenix down.  
__So when I die  
__I will not frown._

"So, so, SO cute!" Kaede screamed. "Chibi zombie Cloud! Ah-dorable!!!"

"Oh my God, _she_ talks like a valley girl too!" Shay moaned.

_Because I am CLOUD!_  
_My hair defies all gravity.  
__But I can't have too many potions  
__or I might get cavities!!!_

_If I can't slice you  
__Then that's okay.  
__I'll use my magic  
__anyway.  
__  
And __I will defeat  
__that Sephiroth  
__because he's not  
__David Lee Roth!_

Cloud made a face. "Never, _ever_ make me watch that again," he said in disgust.

Kaede screamed again. "KAWAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" she screeched. "Must watch again!!!"

"What's wrong with you?" Tally snapped. She shut off the computer.

"Rabid fangirl," I whispered to her.

"Um, okay." Tally looked at Shay, who shrugged.

Meanwhile, Sora, Roxas, and Cloud were backing away into a corner. They'd never seen a fangirl before, and Kaede was not exactly a good first sighting.

"What's with her?" Sora whispered.

"Fangirlisms," I said simply.

"What's a-?"

"Nothing you would ever want to know."

**A/N: in case ya cant tell, I'm totally amped up on sugar! PS, sorry if this is a little mainstream…but GOD, cant you just picture Cloud-kun's face? XD BTW, Kaede, don't shoot me for making you the rabid fangirl, but, well, it's just funnier.**


	24. Chapter 24

**Kaede's POV**

"Owww," I moaned, sitting up and rubbing my neck. "Shay, why did you stick that _thing _in my neck?"

"You were scaring them," Shay informed me, waving a hand at Sora, Cloud and Roxas. "And you were annoying _me_."

I scowled. "So you knocked me out."

"Yup."

"Shay-la, maybe you shouldn't have those chemicals," Aya said gently.

"Why?"

"Because if you inject a random with too many doses of KO juice, you can kill them," Tally snapped.

I widened my eyes. "Okay, somebody take those away from her!"

Everyone laughed.

"Don't worry, Kaede-wa," Ariana insisted. "I won't let them hurt you. That's my job!"

"Good to know," I mumbled.

Yuki stood over me, watching me carefully. "Shay, how many times did you stick her?"

"Um…" Shay began counting on her fingers. "Well, there was when you woke up and we making the jokes about the meds, and there was in the lobby, when you saw Lena-wa peeling away her fake-skin and you were TOTALLY gonna hurt someone when you fainted on your own, so I backed up the natural KO-ed-ness, and then there was when you were scaring them with the song…so three times, I guess."

"Shay-la?" Tally lifted an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Two is the lethal dose."

"Oh, f…"

"But, this random is still alive, walking, and"-Tally paused to peer at me-"I think she's breathing."

"Really," Shay said sarcastically. "I didn't notice."

"So, this girl isn't all random," Tally said, poking my arm and studying me.

"Ow," I said sharply. "Watch your nails, would ya?"

"Right. Sorry," Tally said dryly. "But you aren't just a random, are you?" It was a statement, not a question.

"She's part mage," Cloud said finally.

"Mage?" Tally looked blank.

"Magician." Sora piped up.

"As in, she gets to use the cool staff-y thing-y," Ariana said with a laugh.

"This!" Yuki called out, waving my pointed staff dangerously close to Aya's face.

"Cool! Can I see it?" Lena asked, reaching out for it.

"Sure," Yuki said. She handed it over.

"Thanks," Lena said sweetly. She grabbed it. Instantly, the black handle glowed red and the tip began flashing different colors and spinning. It let out a long, high-pitched scream. Then it let it out again. And again. And again…

"Wow," I said over the noise it was making. "Never seen it do that before!"

"Really?" Lena shouted back.

"The only time I've seen something do that before is the stupid little thing in HP that buzzed whenever there was someone not worthy of trust near it…ah, I forget what it was called." I thought hard. "The sneakascope? Sneakoscope? I honestly don't know. Something like that, though."

"Hmmm…" Ariana said simply. "Wonder if they're related at all?"

"Probably not," Lena said quickly. "I mean, isn't HP fictional?"

"Yeah," I said thoughtfully. "And a Rusty fiction, at that."

"And the lead is a total Ugly," Lena continued.

"Careful," Ariana teased Lena. "I know he's sure not a Natural-born Pretty, but if you use the word 'ugly' with Daniel Radcliff I think Kaede-wa might kill you."

"Right," Lena said. "Um-is there a reason?"

I looked up at her in shock. "Is there a _reason_?"

"Sorry," Lena said quickly. "You just gave me, like, the Look of Death."

She said it like that. As though it was capitalized.

Chiho suddenly got a very evil look on her face. She leaned over and whispered, "Ooh! Kae-kae has a crush on another guy? I'm telling Cloud that you're cheating on him!"

"NO!" I blurted. Everyone turned to stare at me. "Um, sorry."

Chiho giggled.

I whispered, "Don't you dare, Chi! That's just _so mean_!"

"Okay, okay. God, chill, would you?"

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe not."

000000

**Ariana's POV**

"Guys, we should get going! Let's go do something, go somewhere!" I said suddenly. We were flopped out in various spots in the hotel room, and now I was utterly bored.

The room was silent, except for Kaede's giggles. She'd found the Cloud Song again and was watching it.

"Okay," Chiho said suddenly. "I'll go. And so will you." She grabbed Sora by the back of his shirt and dragged him off.

We'd put on our "normal" clothes, since everyone here would think we were just really good cosplayers. Kaede had the computer mouse in one hand and her staff in the other. Lena had pulled a dagger from her dress, which extended when she needed it to.

"Come on," I said firmly. Yuki kicked out the computer's plug again. The screen went dark.

Kaede stood up finally. "Fine," she said. "But we're staying in the hotel. They have sushi! I haven't had normal, non-dehydrated sushi in FOREVER!" She rubbed her hands together, with her staff between them. The staff spun between her hands and glowed a pink-ish black color that made Kaede giggle.

Everyone made their keyblades weigh next to nothing so that we could get past weapon check. Then we got up and marched out of the room. Yuki locked it behind us. She twirled her keyblade and giggled.

"Stop doing that," Kaede scolded, suddenly back to the normal Kaede that we all knew and loved."You look retarded."

"Do you want us to be reduced to Kicker-food?" I added. "That's all we're gonna be if you keep doing that."

"Uh, guys?" Lena stopped walking. "I, uh, left my dagger in the room. Can I go get that?"

"Sure. We'll wait for you," I said sweetly.

Lena's eyes flashed, making me flinch. Then she relaxed, and smiled sweetly. . "No," she said kindly. "I don't wanna hold you guys back. Go ahead, I'll just meet up with you!"

"Kay," Yuki said and she started walking back. We followed her.

Lena waved. "I'll catch up with you guys soon, m'kay?"

"Kay!" we called back and slipped into the elevator.

As the doors closed, I noticed Lena went the wrong way. Our hotel room was left, but she'd just headed to the right. Where was she going?

_Stop it_, I scolded myself again._ She's probably just lost._

000000

**Lena's POV **

I slipped past the closed elevator and walked off towards room number 1313. I let myself in. The darkness enveloped me and I smiled.

"Lord?" I whispered.

"Yes?" came the crackly-sounding reply.

"They are here." I bowed low and added, "They are downstairs."

"Good girl, Kiah. Good girl."


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N: Well, here's another chappy…bleh…in case ya cant tell, I'm sick and I didn't get my sugar cubes (?!) so I'm half out of it. Blech.**

**NBB: Ren is still here. He's just…quiet. Like Cloud. Hmmm…Cloud-kun may be replaced as the group's emo boy! Ha! How sucky would that be? Hyperactive Ren, as the emo boy? –shudders- Oh yeah, and…**

**TOTAL F---ING GLOMPAGE!!!!!!!!!!**

**Yuki's POV**

Lena weaved through the crowd. Her dagger, slightly dulled so she would pass security, was clutched in her hand. Her black skirt swished against her ankles. She'd frozen her flash tattoos, and the snakes were dangling down over her wrists, with their heads resting on the top of her hands. Her C had the snake's tail wrapped around it. The Celtic swirls on her face, which was a new Special signature ever since Tally made them famous, were perfectly still, but they would turn red sometimes when she was frustrated and her focus would slip.

She reached the group, and tapped Ren on his shoulder. "Hey, you," she whispered.

"Hey," Ren whispered back, slightly confused.

Across the circle, I fumed silently. _Ren is mine!_ I thought angrily, and for a moment I considered ripping off Lena's overly clingy arm. Ren was MINE. _Wait a minute. No. Sora is. What the hell was I thinking? __**Ren**__? Lena can do whatever she wants with Ren…oh God I didn't mean it like__** that**__…yech._

I shook my head and wrinkled my nose. "Ew," I muttered to myself. Lena was clinging on Ren's arm, whispering to him. He looked like he wanted to leave. Kaede was talking to Cloud. Akako and Roxas were laughing and pointing at someone in the crowd. I followed their gaze. A Roxas cosplayer? Awk-WARD! Chiho was on one side of Sora, and Ariana was on the other. Wait a minute. Ariana? HEY!

I fumed even more as I crossed the circle to go talk to Sora. I neatly slipped in between Sora and Ariana, smiling sweetly. "Hey, Sora! Is that cosplayer supposed to be you?" I pointed in to the crowd.

"Uh, I think so," Sora said, confused as to why so many girls were crowding around him.

"Not bad, is it?" I asked, admiring the costume.

"Isn't that cosplayer a _girl_?" Ariana asked, her eyes wide.

"So what? It's not bad!" I said quickly. Then I realized I'd just called Sora feminine. "I mean, the costume is well made! She got a good wig! Um, she has very manly features!!!"

Sora coughed. Ariana tried to hide her smile behind her hand. Chiho cackled wildly. The rest of the group just stared blankly.

"What was that all about?" Lena asked Ren, breaking the awkward silence. She still had her hand on his arm. He was looking at it like he wanted it to disappear.

"I don't know," he said, lifting his gaze to look at me. Then he scrambled over and squeezed himself between Sora and I, so he and Sora looked like the luckiest guys in the world because of the crowd of girls around them (Lena had followed Ren). "Help me," he whispered to me, probably making me blush.

"I'd rather not," I whispered back, eyeing Lena's dagger. Kaede had been telling the others how she could sense that there was a strange power coming from the dagger. We had laughed and called her ghost-whisperer.

"Wimp," Ren whispered back.

"Hey," Ariana whispered. "What are you two whispering about, all secret-y?"

"Nuthin' much," I mumbled back.

"Nuthin' _much_? Means there was something. And with your gossip IQ, you're little 'nothing much' could be the biggest gossip gold mine in the century!" Ariana giggled at how very Rusty she sounded.

"No, it's not," I said, exasperated. "It's just that. Nothing."

"Suuuuure it is," Ariana said, smiling as she turned away.

I knew then that she would make sure to find out what we had been whispering about.

"Look at Yuki's red face! SOME ONE has a crush on Ren!" Lena cried out, pointing at me.

Maybe Ariana wouldn't even have to try that hard.

**Ariana's POV**

"Are you sure it's nothing?" I questioned Yuki as we walked up the stairs to our hotel room. The elevator was out of order. It looked as though a bomb had gone off near it, as the inside was black and charred. "You were awfully red."

Chiho rolled her eyes. She made a face at the back of Yuki's head.

"Great, this again," Kaede complained.

"Ari, it's nothing," Akako said.

"Get over it," added Lena, her tone light and playful.

"Oh?" I asked, raising a single eyebrow.

"It's nothing, Ari-wa," Yuki insisted. She crossed her arms, frowning as she marched like an army girl.

"Really?" I asked her, my expression a well-practiced combo of doubt, wistfulness, and curiosity.

"Really," Yuki said, glaring at me. "And stop with the chibi pout. It doesn't work on me."

"Sure it doesn't," I mumbled, pausing on the stairs and clutching the railing pathetically. "Sure."

"Is that your phrase of the night?" Yuki called out, as she squished past me and turned down the hall. She walked down to a room and began digging for the hotel room key we'd been given.

"Maybe!" I shouted back. "And maybe that's not our floor, Yu-yu."

"What?" Yuki paused, her hand still digging in one of her outfit's hidden pockets.

"We're the next one up," I told her. "You're at room 1313."

"Right. Knew that. I was…testing you." Yuki headed back and started climbing more stairs. "But you still failed that test."

"Yeah, well, you failed life." I stuck out my tongue and scrambled after her. The rest of the group laughed as they trailed us.

We were all so busy picking on Yuki, we hadn't even noticed that Ren was still back at the door to room 1313, studying it carefully.

Funny that he was the only one to notice that room 1313 had been placed on the west side. The west wings were supposed to be all the even numbers.

Room 1313 should have been on the east wing. Ren was the only one who noticed, and it was for this reason that he was the only one still there.


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N: I'm SO sorry I took so long to update! I have a lot of stuff to do this week…our yearbook pages all got deleted and they're due on Friday, no extensions possible. I've also got a HUGE English project, a packet for History, and my Science Current Event is this Thursday! (wish me luck! I hate public speaking…everyone just stares at you like**_**, Entertain me…now…do it**_**!) Also, I'm apparently a valedictorian for right now…um, at least until my C+ test is turned in to the report cards…XD. So I'm stressed about possibly having to do a speech for graduation, which I probably won't, but STILL! So, sorry if I don't update as much this week. I'm a bit busy…Anyway, here's your chappy, and I'll try to update soon, mkay?**

I got up and rubbed my eyes, sleepy. I'd fallen asleep at the computer desk, face pressed flat against the keyboard. The Sora Song was still playing through the speakers. I groaned and switched them off.

I forced myself off of the warm, comfortable chair and walked over to the full-length mirror, nearly tripping over Kaede, who had passed out on the floor, propped against the edge of the bed.

Carefully, I studied myself in the mirror. Oh GOD! Was that rat's nest really my hair? Were those the keys on the keyboard printed on a good half of my face? And, worst of all, was that really spit dried on my face? Ew. I ran into the bathroom and washed my face, but the keyboard marks would not go away, and my hair just wouldn't lie flat. I settled for a messy bun and studied myself in the mirror again.

That keyboard sure made a lasting impression…on my face.

I groaned and turned away from the horrible image, re-entering the bedroom and studying the others. Kaede was sprawled out on the floor, Cloud was laying next to her, Sora had passed out on a bigger chair near mine, Akako had fallen asleep with her face pressed against the glass window. Roxas was standing next to her, propped against the wall with his head drooping as he slept. Yuki was sitting on top of the dresser, legs crossed and head nodding. Her white earbuds were still in her ears, and I could hear the music coming out of them. I wondered how she could sleep with her music so loud. Chiho was curled into a tiny ball under the blankets, being the only one who actually got in bed. And Ren was…wait a sec. Where was Ren?

I ran around them, trying to wake them up. I unplugged Yuki's headphones, nudged Kaede until she woke up (but left Cloud alone because he still had his sword in his hand), shoved Akako so she knocked over Roxas too, and then went over to Chiho.

"WAKE UP!" I shouted at them. "REN IS _GONE_!"

"So…" Kaede tipped her head, implying that I was to finish the sentence.

"So, he's not here," I said slowly. "So, he wasn't with the group last night!"

"So, neither is Lena," added Yuki, glancing around through narrowed eyes.

Roxas snorted. "And what, exactly, would Ren and Lena be doing all alone somewhere?"

He got tons of pillows thrown at him, and one of Yuki's used-up iTunes cards. Akako slapped his arm, mumbling something to him that none of us could hear.

"Okay, there is officially something wrong with him," I said loudly.

"Duh," Sora said. "But are you really one to talk?"

I threw another pillow at him, half-laughing. Then I noticed Chiho had only curled up further under the covers. She was now nothing but a tiny ball in the middle of the bed. I groaned and walked over, poking her. "Chi-chi, come on! You gotta get up."

Somehow, Chiho managed to bite my finger through the thick blankets that covered her.

"Damn it, you little demon child!" I muttered under my breath, glaring at my finger.

"Jeez," Sora said, examining first the teeth marks on my finger, then the lump that was his little sister. "She bites hard."

"You're telling me?" I asked him, waving my hand around.

"Shake it off," Yuki teased, rolling her eyes and smirking.

"Shut up!" I looked for a pillow to throw at her, but they were all piled at Roxas's feet.

We laughed, and Chiho finally sat up. Her tiny body shot up, making a slightly taller version of the lump she'd been before. From under the blankets, we heard her say, "Hey! What the-?"

She wriggled her way out, squinting in the bright afternoon sunlight. "Gah!" She blinked a few times, rubbing her eyes with her closed fists.

"Chi-chi," I said to her. "You bite really hard."

Chiho smiled brightly. "I know! Just ask Sora-kun." She got up, standing on the bed, and began whining in a voice that we could only assume to be her best Sora impersonation. "Oh, _ow_, my hand!" She gripped her hand dramatically and fell to her knees on the bed. "Oh my God, she bit my _hand_! That hurt, oh GOD, that huuuuurt! Oh, I-"

That was as far as she got before Sora tackled her. She screamed, and we all cracked up again. In minutes, Sora was sitting cross-legged on Chiho, who was screaming and pounding the bed with her fists.

"Get offa me!" she shouted. "It's not my fault you're a wimp!"

"Says who?" Sora demanded, finally getting off of Chiho's stomach.

"US!" everyone shouted at him.

"Great," he muttered.

Suddenly, Chiho stood up and looked around. "Hey," she said. "Where's Ren and Lena?"

Everyone looked at each other and shrugged. "Dunno," we all said at slightly different times. I hadn't even noticed that Lena was missing, too.

"We should go look, right?" I asked, crossing my arms over my black t-shirt.

"Yeah," Kaede said, nudging Cloud until he woke up. "Cloud! Get up! Ren and Lena are missing!"

Cloud groaned and sat up. "Ugh, what?"

"Lena and Ren are totally MIA," Kaede said, standing up and running a hand through her messy hair. "And we're going to look for them."

"Um…okay," Cloud said, and pushed himself up. He smirked. "We should go, then."

And with that, we got up and walked out of the room. Without a plan, without thinking, and most importantly, without Cloud's ginormous sword.

**A/N: Um...can you say "Oops?" That's a very important item they forgot...**


	27. Chapter 27

**A/N: Hiii everybody…sorry I haven't updated in forever, but ya know what? I've been busy. Sorry. Thought I'd let you know: there are only three more chappys after this one, then it's the end! Oh, and I might do a Q & A with the characters if I get enough Q's from you guys, the reviewers! Yes, you can submit as many questions as you want. AKKY-CHAN IF YOU DON'T REVIEW I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU OFF IN THE SEQUEL! I SWEAR I WILL! (fyi, I named the sequel "Pretty" and it'll be up as soon as I finish this story…possibly on the same night!)**

"Are you sure?" I asked, studying the door.

"Yes," Kaede insisted.

"He disappeared into here," Akako agreed.

"Totally," Yuki said with a nod.

"Guys? Are you sure?" I looked back at them.

Cloud nodded quietly. Sora said, "Absolutely."

Roxas shrugged. "Guess so."

"I mean, it's room 1313 on the even-numbered side of the hotel," Yuki reasoned. "And I checked the hotel registry, there isn't supposed to be a room number 1313. The founder thought it would be like, bad karma or whatever."

Kaede nodded. "Really, Ari-wa," she said impatiently. "Just go in."

"Yes," a raspy voice said. "Do go in."

The next thing we knew, the world was black and we were all falling.

000000

"Oof," Kaede said, sounding like someone had just punched her in the gut. "God, Chi, you don't look like you're that fat, but you feel like you weigh about two hundred pounds when my gut is doing the weighing."

"Ex-cuse me? I'm only seventy-two pounds!" Chiho shouted, laughing.

"Children, what do you think you're doing?" The same raspy voice beckoned to us.

"Depends on who's asking," Yuki said, sounding like a tough little girl. I could see her keyblade glowing in the dark.

I looked around and realized that everyone but me had their keyblades out, and Kaede's staff was glowing gold. The tip was swirling madly, like a Rusty-style drill. The feathers spun with it, making a sort of golden shield.

"Well, that would depend on who's going to fall first?" the voice whispered.

"What?" I gasped. Suddenly, something jabbed at me knees. I fell forward. I heard thuds as everyone else did, too.

"Hover!" Kaede shouted. Then she began muttering to herself, the words of some spell pouring out quickly and quietly: "Lorem ipsum dydonius O Sirius opsir…"

We began to hover as Kaede continued to chant, faster now: "Sirium uit auna O Hera orsigma…"

We abruptly were swallowed by a bubble that glowed pink. I thumped my hands against the bubble as I realized something…

"REN!" I shouted, jabbing at the bubble. His upward-tilted face was barely emerging from the black mush that was the floor. His hand still reached up, his mouth open in a scream. His face was twisted with pain.

Yuki gasped. "Ren…" she whispered, ever so softly.

"Suck it up," Chiho snapped. "This is no time for the waterworks, we've got some butt to kick!"

I turned to her, confused. After all, she had known Ren longer than Kaede, Yuki, Akako, and I had, but she was totally unfazed.

That opinion changed when I saw her face. Her eyes were narrowed, her expression twisted. Her keyblade was clutch tightly with one hand; the other held a staff that was like Kaede's but it was all brown where Kaede's was black, with blue where Kaede's was red. It was something entirely new to me: she'd never whipped _that_ out during our practices!

"Let's kick some serious a-" Chiho started to say.

"Chiho!" Kaede shouted. "Watch what you say! This story is only rated K+! You can't swear unless it's rated T!"

"Then we'll kick butt in this one, and you-know-what in the sequel!" Chiho shouted. "Now, let's go kill that gutless WIMP!"

We cheered, and Kaede chanted something else, so the bubble sort of half-burst. Only the front popped. The rest became a hard, spiked shell. We grinned.

"Now this is cool," Roxas said lightly.

"It's not all that practical, though, now is it?" the raspy voice asked, and our tiny floating bubble began to shake. "You'll find it hard to save yourself when you're falling"-Kaede disappeared from view-"and if your friend falls, what will happen?"

Cloud's normally emotionless face was panicked. "My sword! It's…it's gone!"

"GREAT!" Chiho shouted. "So we're basically doomed!"

"See what happens when you're bad little city girls? It's all your fault, you girls. Your fault. If you hadn't come to Soul Kingdom, these so-called _warriors_ here wouldn't have to deal with me. They'd never know you, and they'd never have started the fire in your cave that gave off the smoke that led us to your cave. It's all your fault…" The raspy voice laughed. This laugh was like nails on a chalkboard, a chipmunk on helium, and a drunk celebutante (celebrity debutantes exist in the future, too!) all rolled into one. It really was that annoying.

The bubble began to disintegrate under our feet. Kaede was safe under her own little bubble, but the rest of us were free falling. Her head was down, her eyes shut, and she was chanting to herself.

"KAEDE!" Chiho cried. Kaede's head jerked up. Her eyes widened. She shouted something we couldn't hear and her bubble stretched out towards us. I started screaming. Ren's face, still sunken in the ground, was only inches away from me.

Suddenly, something pink and rubbery caught me just before I hit Ren in the face with my arm. I sat up. Rubbing my arm, I groaned.

"What the heck?" I complained. "That hurt."

For a moment, there was peace. It was like being in the eye of a storm, with destruction all around you and yet, it felt so peaceful.

Everyone was here. Ren's face was pressed up against the surface of the bubble. Kaede walked over, making the bubble jiggle slightly. She reached right through the bubble, her hands glowing blue-ish purple. She lifted Ren's face slowly, her hands quivering.

"He really does not look this heavy," Kaede grunted as she tugged with both hands.

Ren's neck slowly emerged, then parts of his shoulders. Finally, his whole torso was out, then his legs. His feet came into the bubble last.

The bubble made a tiny pop when it closed after his feet. He lay there, still completely covered in blackness.

"Ren?" Yuki whispered, eyes wide. "Kaede, is he-"

Kaede's hands still glowed slightly. "He's still alive," she said quickly. "But he wouldn't have been in a few moments. He needs Shay's meds, or he's got no chance of living."

Shay stared back at us. "What? Why waste my meds on a doomed bubblehead?"

Tally sighed. Aya crossed her arms. Both girls stared at each other. "No, you do it," Aya mouthed at Tally.

Tally sighed. "Shay, just give him a freakin' shot before Yuki-wa here has a spaz attack."

"But he's doomed anyway! It would be like giving a dead person meds. It's totally pointless. Besides, I wouldn't know what to give him. The wrong thing could be fatal!"

"Not anymore than his current condition!" Akako cried out.

"SHAY!" Tally shouted, her face morphing from pretty boredom to Special anger in a moment. She bared every single one of her glittering teeth. "Give him the meds."

At that moment, our bubble was shot at. A green light shot at us, turning our bubble from a lively blue to a sickly green.

"SHAY!"

"No."

The green light came again. Our bubble turned a paler version of the former green.

"Shay, I'm not going to protect us if you do not give that guy the meds," Tally growled.

"Wait, what?" I shouted. Sure, Ren needed the meds, but was it worth all of us dying?

The light came again. Chiho and I screamed, louder this time. We were thrown left and right as the light struck us over and over.

Cloud was bracing himself against the wall, gritting his teeth. I could tell he regretted not having his sword, because Kaede was being thrown all over the bubble and he couldn't do anything to help her.

"Shay!" Aya shouted. "Give him the meds so Tally will protect us!"

"I don't know about you, but I have no desire to die today," I added loudly.

"NO!"

Abruptly, tall, black figures started rising from the blackness below. They molded their own hands into weapons and came forward, the formerly shapeless mush now sharp and hard. I struck one with my keyblade. It disintegrated, but the black ash went over to another one and joined it, making it bigger.

I groaned. Great.

We started slashing at them all, until all that was left was one huge black thing with long, glistening arms. It had tons of little spikes up and down these arms, and it would swing at us randomly. We had to keep jumping over it. It was like Rusty-style jump rope, but with fatal consequences if we didn't jump in time.

Meanwhile, below us, Ren was breathing slower and slower…

**A/N: Ha ha, I'm so mean. Don't you hate cliffys? Too bad! That's all you get…**


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N: Muahahahaha! I'm so EVIL! Oh wait, you knew that already. But still…NBB-chan, please don't kill me! Akky-chan, you reviewed! Yuki-chan, don't worry! Just read the chap…**

**Everyone else, please don't kill me! And if you must, at least review before you do that! (think about it! If you kill me now, you won't get to see if Ren lives because you killed me, and I can't type from beyond the grave…can I?)**

"Shay, I swear to effing GOD, if you do not give what's-his-face the meds, I am not moving." Tally glared at her friend and stood perfectly still, arms crossed defiantly.

"Uh, his name is Ren," Yuki said.

"Why waste them on what's-his-face?" Shay growled.

"His name is Ren," Yuki repeated.

"Because what's-his-face is-" Tally started to say.

"REN!" Yuki screamed.

"Yeah, yeah, we know you're worried about your little boyfriend," Shay said crossly, waving away Yuki dismissively.

Tally kept talking as though they'd never interrupted her in the first place. "-still alive, and breathing, and I think we need to avoid unnecessary death, not to mention unnecessary emo-ness." She glanced at Yuki, rolling her eyes.

I laughed quietly as Yuki turned red.

"Hey, I hate to interrupt here, but Ren is almost _not _still breathing!" Chiho shouted at us, waving her arms desperately. Her keyblade nearly whacked Cloud in the head.

"Hey! Easy there!" Kaede shouted, bending over backwards to avoid Chiho's long, pointed nails. "And Chi, that made _no _sense!"

"REN IS DYING!!!" Chiho screamed at us. "DOES _THAT_ MAKE SENSE TO YOU IDIOTS?"

"No need to be snippy," Tally said, smoothing her hair.

"EX-_CUSE_ ME? YES, THERE IS! MY BROTHER'S FRIEND IS DYING!!! SHAY GIVE HIM THE STUPID MEDS OR I SWEAR TO GOD…!" Chiho stopped flailing her arms, as it was making our bubble bounce around and we didn't want to hit the wall.

Shay actually looked afraid. Chiho, tiny chibi that she was, had the three Specials cowering against the wall.

"SHAY! GIVE REN THE MEDS!"

"But-" Shay started.

"NO BUTS! MOVE IT!!!"

"But he's almost dead, and…"

"NOW!!!" Chiho roared, eyes blazing, hair flying wildly in some unseen wind.

"Fine," Shay sniffed and flipped her hair, almost like an angry Pretty would. It was all very un-Special, until Shay pulled out a four-inch needle and said, "Here ya go. One death cure."

I grabbed the tube, making sure whatever was in it wasn't lethal. The tube read, "**EMERGENCY CURE**" in big, bold, red letters. I smiled and handed the tube to Yuki.

"You get to stick that in his arm," I said. "Because there is no way I'm gonna do that."

"What? Why me? I mean, I-" Yuki started to complain.

"Yuki," Chiho's voice was scarily soft. She sounded like she could start screaming again at any moment. "If you do not do it _right now_, I swear to GOD…well, let's just say I won't be responsible for my actions."

Yuki flinched at Chiho's threat and sighed. She took the needle from me.

I squished my eyes shut, sighing. I'd never liked blood, or needles, or anything like that.

Akako looked at me and laughed. "Wimp," she said.

"I don't like needles," I said, my eyes squished shut even harder.

"Oh, sure," Kaede piped up. "There's some freak who wants to kill you and your friends? No problem! You run to meet him. But a needle? Oh, no! You can't even look at it!"

"Pretty much," I said.

"Ariana?" Chiho's tone had changed. She sounded normal again, her voice tinged with worry.

"What?" I asked. "Are they done yet?"

"No," Akako said. "Yuki is arguing with Aya over if she really has to do it."

"Wimp," I said, laughing.

"Ariana!" Chiho said, a little more loudly.

"What?" I asked, opening my eyes.

"Look out!" Kaede screamed.

I whirled around and saw the arm sweeping towards us, the ghostly eyes locked on me. They jumped in time.

I didn't.

The mouth opened and laughed wickedly, the arms moving faster now, coming towards our small group…

Tally cussed loudly and pulled Ren onto her shoulders, preparing for the jump.

That was the last thing I saw, before I blacked out.

**A/N: Well, I meant for that chappy to be the one where everything gets all better, but it looks like that'll be next chappy. (don't worry, NBB! It'll be up in like 5 minutes.)**


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N: What? Did you seriously think I'd torture you with that for five long minutes? Puh-lease! Here's the next chap! Either this one or chap 30 will be the last, and there will be a Q & A with the characters, so start sending you questions with reviews!**

I woke up in an all-white room, in a stiff and uncomfortable bed. My eyes fluttered open, and the first thing I saw was a large needle.

I shot up, then screamed because that action sent fits of pain up my spine. Falling back on the bed hurt, too.

"Holy mother f-" I started.

"You broke both your legs," Tally informed me.

"And bruised your spine," Kaede piped up.

"And got so much blood all over the place, it was like a scene from a horror movie!" Chiho shuddered and looked at me.

"Then that means…" My gaze drifted to my arm, where (sure enough) there was a needle. "Oh, my God. Ew, ew, _ew_."

"A killer monster? No problem for you! An IV? You freak out," Tally stated, shaking her head. "What is _wrong _with you?"

"Everything," I said, my voice strained. I was trying to convince myself not to rip the IV out of my arm. "I already had the same talk with Kae-kae."

"Oh." Tally sat back.

"Where, exactly, am I?" I asked, looking around.

"You're in the Emergency Room at some fancy-schmancy hospital. We told 'em you fell. Off of a hiking trail, down a hill, and into the road, where you narrowly missed being hit by a car." Chiho smirked.

"Chi had a little _too much_ fun fabricating the evidence. That is one bloody hill, let me tell you," Kaede snickered as Chiho turned red.

"It was _fun_," Chiho said, almost defensively.

"What happened to the Dark Dork?" I asked.

"Well," Kaede started to say.

"We got together-" Yuki began.

"AND WE HACKED HIM TO PIECES!!!" Chiho shouted enthusiastically.

I laughed, even though that hurt, too. "So, Ren…"

"Is fine," Yuki piped up. "I got the shot in his arm."

"Wimp," Akako coughed.

"Two inches off target," Shay muttered.

"So he…"

"Is alive," Ren piped up, from his hospital bed next to mine. "Now, can we stop talking about me like I'm not here?"

We laughed. "Right," Yuki said, smiling softly.

Just then, the door flung open.

"My baby!" my mother shouted dramatically. She rushed forward (brutally shoving Chiho aside) and hugged me.

"OW!" I screeched. The tiny cuts all over me seemed to scream in pain all on their own.

"Sorry, dear." My dad came in, half-smiling. "I told her not to hug you."

"Who's this?" My mother eyed Chiho with certain disgust, studying her Gothic outfit and the dirt smeared all over Chiho's face.

"My friend," I said firmly.

"Oh, but sweetie-" My mom started to protest.

A nurse came running into the room. "Excuse me, but Miss Ariana cannot handle more than one group of visitors at a time!"

She ushered my parents out.

I glared at Tally. "You called my parents?"

"Yes." She glared back. "They're here to take you back."

"To SK?" I asked, eyes wide.

"No," Shay snapped.

"Then where?" I wondered.

"Back to your original home."

**A/N: whoo, I decided this is the final chap! I've gotta start the sequel, but it will be up very, **_**very**_** soon. Did you like it? I hope so! Like I said, next chap will be Q & A will the characters, so make sure you send questions with your reviews!**


	30. Character Q and A

**A/N: Well, here ya go! The final bit of NTM! The characters will answer questions, and I will too. FYI, Aya is answering in Japanese and these are translations. Thanks, "Massie" and Mokona-dono and NobleBrokenBeauty (MADDI!) for asking q's. Yup, all this came from three people. Eleven questions. Nine via review, one in person, one from a PM. Wheeeeee**!

**Enjoy!**

**Q: When are you posting the sequel?**

me: Um, soon. Once this is up, give me like 5 minutes to post the sequel.

Ren: Um, does that mean I have to almost-die again?

-long silence-

Ren: Hello? Does it?!

**Q: Aya- where did you go in the past few chapters?!  
**

Aya: Uh, I was there! I don't speak English very well, so I don't respond when they talk in English.

**Q: Lena- what's up with the abrupt disappearance?  
**

Kiah: Um, duh. I'm not Lena, I'm Kiah. Lena was a name to get the other to trust me.

Chiho: HEY! WHAT?!

**Q: MH- is Kiah dead or not?!**

Kiah: I'm answering these questions, aren't I?

**Q: So, Ren gets to live? **

Ren: Yup. I'm glad. That was not cool, almost dying.

Chiho: Stop the obsession before I stop it for you.

**Q: For Tally and Shay-why were you pretending to help the Dark Dork?  
**

Tally: Because we can.

Shay: Tally, don't be a butthead. We were trying to figure out the Dark Dork's plans so we could stop him. He had certain friends. Oh, and we rescued them some time after the battle, but the story is told from Ari-wa's POV and she was blacked out.

**Q: Kiah- why do you suck so much? Seriously.**

Kiah: Um, excuse me?

Kaede: Yeah, why do you?

Kiah: HEY!

**Q: What are the pairings here?  
**

Kaede: Ooooooh! Ooooh! CloudxKaede!

Cloud: Uh…okay.

Yuki: RenxYuki

Akako: And she likes it!

Yuki: Go play in traffic, Akky!

Chiho: I'm alone…aw, that's depressivo! Maybe I'll meet someone in the sequel… -looks at MH- I will, won't I?!

Ariana: I'm not! I get Sora, and Akky-chan gets Roxas, and uh…I think that's it?

ALL GUYS: Hey, do we get a say in this at all?!

Me: Pretty much, no.

**Q: Are you posting the sequel soon?!**

Me: Well, duh. Didn't I answer this already?!

Ren: Does it involve me almost dying again?

Me: Naw. Well, maybe.

Ren: Oh, come on! You suck! –turns away-

Me: Wow, my own OC hates me…I have MAJOR skill!

**Q: Ren-why are you so conceited?**

Ren: HEY! I take offense in that!

Chiho, Sora, Ariana: Well, you should!

Ren: HEY!

Me: Hey, go yell at NobleBrokenBeauty. She's the one who asked.

**Q: MH- are you any of the people in this story?**

Me: Uh, yeah. Chiho was based off of me and made by The Keys Unlocked (Jessi!) but in this story I am Ariana.

Chiho: What?! And I thought I was original!

Ariana: So, I'm not all fiction?!

Me: Uh…um… -runs away-

**A/N: Well, there ya go! The end of NTM...and the beginning of Pretties...that's up rite now. In case u didnt see that.**


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